Honesty is the basis of the relationship between a patient and a doctor. Doctors need the truth from their patients just as much as patients need the truth from their doctors. This implies that patients and doctors have a bilateral relationship when it comes to the truth. In order for the medical personnel to attend to the patient accurately and adequately, the patient should trust them enough to be honest about how he/she feels as well as his/her medical history known from elitewritings. This means that the doctor generally expects the patient to be totally honest with him or her. For this to happen, however, the patient and the doctor must act in a manner to gain each other’s trust. The only way for doctors to interact with patients fruitfully is thus by maintaining honesty regardless of the situation. This is often difficult within a regular context thus the need for the doctors to start practicing while still training as medical students. This essay is reflection on commitment to honesty and why it is imperative that medical students remain honest always .

In ordinary circumstances, patients need the doctor to be honest about how bad their condition is or how much time the patient remains to live, even what his or her odds for surviving a disease are, or how much of the problem is the doctor’s fault. All these are critical concepts that the doctor needs to be able to tell the patient without hesitation or deviation. Whether the information is good or bad, the patient has the right to know and the only thing that a doctor should worry about is how to tell the patient, and not whether or not to tell. It is thus important for the doctor to learn how to be honest, even when they would rather not say anything. To medical students, this especially applies when a mistake has been made.

As a medical student, mistakes are often expected within a number of contexts as related to medical practice. Whether in the lab, in class or in the ward, medical students are exposed to various contexts where they are likely to make mistakes as a part of their learning process. The challenge however is that most medical institutions are quite competitive and students strive to be the best in their classes. This makes it a bit difficult to admit when one does not know something or is not sure about a certain concept. The commitment to honesty in this case emphasizes that the student should be able to confess his/her predicament. As part of the struggle to learn and become professionals, medical students engage in self-teaching in a number of occasions. This opens them up to mistakes that they may have to report to the relevant authorities within the institution or hospital.

From personal experience, reporting one’s own mistakes is not an easy task. In my case, I was particularly torn between remaining silent and reporting the mistake particularly because I did not think it was quite necessary to report it. However, I have also learnt that concealing my mistakes would prevent me from learning how to avoid them in the future. Moreover, while I got some punishment for the mistakes, I was also given a lot of instructions and opportunities to practice to avoid making the same mistakes again. This incident taught me about making mistakes and comply them as a critical part of the learning process within the field of medicine. I also learnt that a good doctors should be able to take responsibility for their actions even when they risk being punished severely for the mistakes that they made. Most doctors would not be able to learn from their mistakes if they were not required to take responsibility for their actions.