I have been learning to make use of the skill to acknowledge what I don't know that I don't know. Knowledge is different from all other kinds of resources, as we have been told, because it constantly makes itself obsolete.
Last week, one of our talented fellows asked me what's the reason of stopping salbutamol, a short-acting "reliever" medication for chest tightness, in case our patients are coughing up blood from the lungs. I took a deep breath and then told her I don't really know. Although I quoted the evidence from an article that appeared in the British Medical Journal 28 years ago, the honest answer should be kind of old wives' tale. That's what I had been taught soon after my becoming a doctor.
Looking back, I reflected on what I had learned about the need to suspend any dogma, however hard earned it may be. Be flexible and admit I don’t have all the answers. To borrow an idea from Nance Guilmartin, the more we think we know, the less we truly know.
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- KM Chow
- Hong Kong
- KM Chow is a young chap who is learning to show respect for the other person's opinion.
2 comments:
Colin Powell told his advisers, "Tell me what you know, then tell me what you don't know, and only then tell me what you think."
I often heard about this story.
A high school graduate thinks he know everything and want to conquer the world.
When he get to college, he think, hmmm, there are something I do not know.
When he is doing his master degree, he thinks there are a lot he does not know.
When he is doing his PhD, he thinks he know very little indeed.
After he is done with his PhD, he thinks he does not know anything.
"The more you know, the more you know you don't know". Very true.
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