Let us all take a moment to appreciate Dr. Ronald Epstein, for giving us a minor gem of a clinical article, "Mindful practice."  I can see that this paper is probably one they stick in a thick stack of articles for med students to read.  I can remember reading these types of articles and going, "Huh?" and then proceeding to the funny articles they usually give you in the back.

So, almost 12 (!) years into being a doc, I am coming to understand and practice some of these concepts.  It's nice to find that someone already discovered these things and wrote a whole article about them a decade ago!

I think self-knowledge is a very important thing for a person to have.  I teach this to my kids, and I believe in it.  You have to know yourself--how do you respond to certain situations?  What are your triggers?  What sets you off emotionally during a patient encounter, for example?  I think if you can recognize that pattern, you can stay ahead of your emotions cognitively, and retain control.

We all have our weaknesses, whether its because of our upbringing, culture, whatever.  The more time we spend reflecting on these, the more self-knowledge we bring to every new encounter, and so we do it a little better each time.

We hear a lot of messages to "change yourself," but to me this doesn't feel right.  I want to accept myself as I am, not always try to be something different.  In fact, I think the more I understand what I am, the more compassionate I can be.  If I've already invested the time in figuring out myself and my reactions to situations, I can spend more brain cycles listening to the patient, being more "present" in a difficult encounter.

By the way, any JAMA article that quotes Anais Nin is a cool article.  She said, "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."  Wow.