Often when people think of a doctor they imagine someone noble, a person who smiles all the time, and cares about you; but is it actually true, or do they put on a persona when they talk to their patients?

  It is obvious that not everyone can become a doctor—It takes courage and responsibility. “Being a doctor means caring for a person that sits in front of you,” said Doctor Mike, a popular doctor in one of his YouTube videos. 

  When people think of doctors, they think of them as someone they can trust: someone “safe.” They think of a person that they can share everything that is going on in their lives with— someone that won’t judge. 

  The most important characteristic in a doctor is love. Most people become doctors not because they’re fascinated in science, or because their parents told them to, but because they love to help others. Becoming a doctor means giving your life away to other people.

  As stated by the United States National Library of Medicine, “Other professionals can be judged by their end results, but a doctor can be defined as good only when he or she has as many as possible of the above attributes. A good doctor is simultaneously learned, honest, kind, humble, enthusiastic, optimistic, and efficient.”

  No matter what the disease or outcome of the procedure is, the doctor will be right there with the patient doing whatever they can to help. We can see that throughout history when doctors were considered “clean” people. That’s the reason why we usually see them wearing white coats; though as stated by the AMA Journal of Ethics, you would be surprised that prior to the 19th century doctors wore not white, but black gard. It was done so, because many people believed that doctors were the ones who could take the sickness away, and many people associated black with different diseases and illnesses.  

  Sophomore at Sanderson High School, Emelly Andrade Gomez shared, “When I think of a doctor, I imagine someone who helps others every day, people who research, study a lot and work harder than most people are willing to, in order to improve peoples’ health enormously.”

  Being able to do what doctors do is hard. They not only must love what they do, but also be passionate about it. It takes skills and knowledge to do their work, and that’s the reason why it takes more than four years to understand what the human body is about.  

  Gomez continued, “To me, a good doctor is someone who is loving, courageous, calm, determined, energetic, friendly, funny, investigative, informed, mature, observant, passionate, responsible, and reassuring.”

  Famous psychiatrist Carl Jung remarked, “Medicines cure disease, but only doctors can cure patients.” There is nothing that will ever replace a doctor who is like a caring, honest, and kind friend; people do not become doctors, they are born this way.