This document contains a summary of an address given by Dr. William Osler in the late 1800s about ideals for physicians. It discusses three personal ideals: doing each day's work well without worrying about tomorrow, treating colleagues and patients with kindness and respect, and maintaining equanimity in both success and hardship. It emphasizes treating medicine as a calling of service rather than a business, working with compassion, and finding balance through hobbies and laughter to avoid stress and promote happiness in the profession. The overall message is that medicine should be practiced with humility, charity, and a focus on preventing disease and relieving suffering.

1. Many years ago I came across an article by Janice Mancuso. She had taken
Osler’s words and through poetic license developed a “Keynote address”. The
following is the result of her efforts. Remember he wrote these words in the
late 1800’s.
We doctors do not "take stock" often enough. In no relationship is the
physician more often derelict than in his duty to himself. Acquire the art of
detachment, the virtue of method, and the quality of thoroughness ... but
above all, the grace of humility. Keep a looking glass in your own heart, and
the more carefully you scan your own frailties, the more tender you are for
those of you fellow creatures.
You are in this profession as a calling, not a business; as a calling which
exacts from you at every turn self-sacrifice, devotion, love and tenderness to
your fellow men. Once you get down to a purely business level, your
influence is gone, and the true light of your life is dimmed. You must work in
the missionary spirit, with a breadth of charity that raises you far above the
petty jealousies of life.
The times have changed, conditions of practice altered and we are altering
rapidly, but the ideals which inspired our earlier physicians are ours today —
ideals which are ever old, yet always fresh and new. Linked together by the
strong bonds of community of interests, the profession of medicine forms a
remarkable world-unit in the progressive evolution of which there is a fuller
hope for humanity than in any other direction.
I have had three personal ideals. One is to do the day's work well and not to
bother about tomorrow ... The second ideal has been to act the Golden Rule
... towards my professional brethren and towards the patients committed to
my care. And the third has been to cultivate such a measure of equanimity as
would enable me to bear success with humility, the affections of my friends

2. without pride, and to be ready when the day of sorrow and grief came, to
meet it with the courage befitting a man.
Start at once a bed-side library and spend the last half hour of the day in
communion with the saints of humanity. It helps immensely to be a bit of a
hero worshipper, and the stories of the lives of the masters of medicine do
much to stimulate our ambition and rouse our sympathies. There is no such
relaxation for a weary mind as that which is to be had from a good story, a
good play or a good essay. It is to the mind what sea breezes and the
sunshine of the country are to the body — a change of scene, a refreshment,
and a solace.
The young doctor should look about early for an avocation, a pastime, that
will take him away from patients, pills, and potions ... No one is really happy
or safe without one.
But whatever you do, take neither yourself nor your fellow creatures too
seriously. There is a form of laughter that springs from the heart; that defies
analysis by the philosopher, which has nothing rigid or mechanical in it, and
totally without social significance. Without egotism and full of feeling,
laughter is the music of life.
To each one of you the practice of medicine will be very much as you make
it — to one a worry, a care, a perpetual annoyance; to another, a daily joy
and a life of as much happiness and usefulness as can well fall to the lot of
man.
Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence the minor
aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity. No matter how trifling the
matter at hand, do it with a feeling that it is the best that is in you. Courage
and cheerfulness will not only carry you over the rough places in life, but will
enable you to bring comfort and help to the weak-hearted and will console
you in the sad hours.

3. To have striven, to have made an effort, to have been true to certain ideals—
this alone is worth the struggle. To prevent disease, to relieve suffering and
to heal the sick — this is our work.
Submitted by
Duncan Scott B.ScM.D F.R.C.P ( c)
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Division Head and
(Acting) Clinical Director of Forensic Mental Health Services
Division of Forensic Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario Canada