Submission By: La Donna R. Porter, MD
St. Joseph’s Medical Center, Stockton CA, Family Medicine Residency Program Director
Image accessed from: https://pixy.org/4390466/
My inspiration for this poem was truly my love for teaching Family Medicine Residents and medical students.
However, I realized that my passion for teaching was also due in part to the Family Medicine Faculty, Residents, Specialists, Nurses, Hospital Staff and last but not least the patients I care for, ALL of whom were instrumental in training me.
I have become, in many ways, the Physician and Teacher I am because of them.
Teacher
Teacher, teacher what can I say
You chose me to stretch beyond any normal boring day
With thoughts of scalpels and sutures and retractors swimming around in my head
You chose me for a different journey than that for which I had been led
To what do I owe you
Can you or will you ever know
How much you have done for me there is so much to say
How much I have learned each and every day
Oh teacher, teacher what am I to do
When this beautiful journey ends
I will most certainly miss you
How can I say it, where will I begin
But as a sorority, of which I am a member for life
You too are with me forever
I cannot tell you how much I went through to meet you
As much as I can, I will leave you never
Here I am teaching those as you have taught me
The biopsychosocial model swims lovingly in my head
Differential diagnoses are where the learners are led
In this journey planned out for me, more incredible discovery
So now that I have told you all that you need to know
How much I truly have grown because you have loved me so
Thank you for stretching me beyond where I thought that I could never go
An incredible teacher I have become, to you I know I owe
Teacher, teacher what can I say
Thank you Family Medicine
For training and raising me
In your amazing way
La Donna R. Porter, MD
Daily Dose of Humanities 