Basic Motives of a Professional Life

BASIC MOTIVES OF A PROFESSIONAL LIFE* ARTHUR KORNBERG, itf.D.f I went to medical school and then served as a house officer. I enjoyed clinical medicine and fully intended to go into practice. Then the events of 1941 forced me into unexpected circumstances. As a commissioned officer, during a tour ofduty, I was ordered to do full-time research. I found I liked it and stayed with it. Yet I have always remained close to medical schools and medical problems. I have wondered many times to myselfand with my students about the opportunities and responsibilities ofa physician 's life. I want to share some ofthese thoughts. An earlier American president admonished us: "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." This is very fine sounding and also very misleading. Because most ofthe time we should and do occupy ourselves with personal interests, and we pursue national interests only when our personal and national interests happen to coincide. I have met people in scientific research and in other professional activities who state that the prime mission in their professional lives is to help humanity. It has seemed to me that these people are either deluded or dishonest . I have worried over the years that my attitudes might be too harsh and offthe mark butI was encouraged recently to find similar ideascharmingly expressed in some autobiographical notes ofG. H. Hardy, the late and gifted English mathematician. * Reprinted with permission from Pharos. This paper is based on an address delivered at the commencement exercises ofthe University ofUtah College ofMedicine inJune 1969. The author states: "I dedicate diis paper to Dr. William S. McCann, professor ofmedicine, emeritus, ofthe University ofRochester, on the occasion ofhis eightieth birthday. I was a student and house officer in his department during the years 1939-42. I recall with deep gratitude his generous personal concern for me and his courageous fight against bigotry, intolerance, and chauvinism." I Department ofBiochemistry, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, California 94305. 222 Arthur Kornberg · Basic Motives ofa Professional Life Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Winter 1970 I would like to indicate what Hardy believed and what I believe to be the basic motives ofa professional life, be it in mathematics, biochemistry or medicine. There are essentially three motives. These are: First, pleasure in solving problems that provoke intellectual curiosity; Second, pride in solving these problems with professional skill; and Third, ambition to be creative and thereby to be an artist instead ofa practitioner. The burden of this paper will be to explain why I regard these three motivations to be the prime components of a true professional life. But firstI mustconsider the more usual attitude that the essence ofaphysician's profession is to dedicate himself to service. I assume that the physician when he performs such service for patients is primarily serving himself. He serves patients because he derives deep personal satisfaction from being ofservice or because he gains private wealth or most probably for both reasons. Obviously, regardless ofmotive, the patient's comfort or his very life depend on the services ofa good physician. Sometimes physicians engage in teaching or administrative work, part time or even full time. But these are usually additional forms of community service. My appeal to students is that they consider the opportunities that training in medicine offers for a professional life with even larger dimensions, a professional life that includes more artistic and intellectual activity. This fuller professional life, I believe, will best serve both personal as well as community interest. What I am describing is in some sense an ideal standard, and ideal standards are shrugged offin medicine as often as they are in politics. But this does notjustify one's seeking anything less. Walter Lippmann said many years ago that it is "bad to shrug offideal standards in politics . . . because it defeats us and frustrates our lives. If we do not harden ourselves by stretching ourselves to reach upward to these not wholly attainable ideals, we slump down and settle into flabbiness and footlessness and boredom." Now let me be specific about these three motivations in a physician's professional life that are so often lost...