I entered college firm in my intention of someday going to medical school. However, there was one slight problem: unlike many of my pre-med bound peers, I had little intrinsic interest in biology, chemistry, or majoring in anything remotely "scientific."
A semester into undergrad, my suspicions about my "un-scientific" predilection were confirmed. I loathed my several-hundred-person general chemistry lectures and enjoyed gabbing with my lab partners more than conducting actual experiments. When I wasn't doing homework, you'd more likely find me hanging out with my friends after choir practice or strumming guitar with my bandmates than working on a research proposal or thinking about studying for the MCAT. I found myself drawn in the course catalogue to subjects I simply found interesting – Italian, economics, constitutional law, and even the odd theological seminar or two — rather than the "right" courses to pad a medical school application. While I begrudgingly forced myself through the meat grinder that was organic chemistry and biology "on the side," hoping to keep my dreams of becoming a doctor alive while staying as far away as possible from courses like physical chemistry or neuroscience, I mostly made myself at home in a seminar-based major called the "Program of Liberal Studies."
I had very little idea at the time just how formative this decision would be. The semi-formal tagline of our program was "learn what it means to be human." This was accomplished predominantly through small group, instructor-led discussions with 10-20 classmates. The core texts of the course spanned thousands of years, from Ancient Greece to the modern era. Sprinkled through were field trips to Chicago to watch opera, visits to the rare book archives to examine medieval manuscripts, and day-long readings of Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton. In addition to the formal curriculum, students hosted informal "Symposia" as well – parties where we conversed (and consumed the occasional beverage) together about what we had learned in class — the nature of love, beauty, suffering, and everything in between. We grew together in our small cohort over the course of our four years together, at first as colleagues, but also as friends.
In very many ways our small cohort could not have been more different from one another. There were those of many religious persuasions, and none. Some were liberal, others conservative. Some couldn't care less about historical context, while others could scarcely operate without it. Some learned Latin or Greek in high school; others hadn't heard a word of it ever. The binding glue of the program, however, was that we were all dedicated to the project of seeking understanding: at first, of the texts that we read together, but ultimately, of each other as individuals.
When I think back on that time, I think often of how glad I was that I did not try to force myself into the mold of what I thought a doctor should be. It would have been easy for me to take the conventional path to medicine. Instead, I decided to double down on what attracted me to medicine in the first place – conversations with people different from myself. There were undoubtedly times when I disagreed with my classmates, sometimes vehemently. But over time, I learned how to coexist with them and try to see their perspective – albeit imperfectly – even when we disagreed about how to move forward.
In very many ways, this is the task physicians must master each day. We're forced to distill vast amounts of information into a digestible format that is easily understood, then to communicate our interpretations of that information to others who may be extremely different from us. Where we see a frail older woman in need of 24/7 supervision, that same patient's child may see their mother as a "fighter" who never wanted to live in a nursing home. Where we see a patient languishing in an ICU on four pressors with multisystem organ failure, that same patient's sibling saw them just last week, as healthy as they've ever been. I would hazard that most conflicts in the doctor-patient relationship arise when we fail to bridge the gap between our worlds, whether from our own lack of skill or factors outside our control. We all know these situations as physicians, but we ignore the perspectives of those on the "other side" at our own peril; their experience, too, is part of what it means to be human.
To bridge that gap, to cross that divide, requires an immense and nuanced understanding of the human experience – one that comes with time and practice. It's for reasons like this that I'm immensely grateful for my liberal arts background, as it prepared me to deal with these differences of perspective and understand more deeply how two people with the "same" information may come to vastly different conclusions. Call it a difference of opinion, perspective, or whatever you will: these disagreements and differences are as core a component of what it means to be human as the carbon atoms that bodies are composed of, and just as relevant to medical practice.
In an age of misinformation, a growing distrust of physicians, violence against health care workers, and rising burnout, the world needs physicians who are not merely excellent scientists, but students of humanity. This is a completely different skillset from the scientific one that comes so naturally to many in the medical profession. Unlike those skills, studying what it means to be human is not a lesson learned in the pages of a chemistry textbook, but in countless conversations with others, both alike and different. The neglected "art" of medicine is more important than ever, not less. Even as our understanding of disease advances, the need for us to understand the patient with the disease deepens even further. Even in the midst of all these challenges as physicians, I still see the practice of medicine as a profound gift – a change to continue to "learn what it means to be human" every day.
If you had a non-medical major, how has it helped you in your medical career? Share in the comments.
Dr. Brennan Kruszewski is an internal medicine physician in Hudson, Ohio. He is passionate about transforming primary care. He enjoys spending time outdoors, especially biking the trails of Northeast Ohio. He is active on social media, and blogs at his personal website. Dr. Kruszewski is a 2024-2025 Doximity Op-Med Fellow. Opinions expressed here are his own and not the opinions of his employer.
Illustration by Diana Connolly
