Everything I needed to know about med school, I learned in the Marine Corps

The following are some things that I learned first in the Marine Corps, and again in medical school. Some, if not many, are not my own ideas, but are from outside sources that are applicable to both.

1. Mistakes get people killed.


2. Sucking chest wounds are nature's way of telling you to slow it down


3. People can bleed a lot, but not forever


4. Often, the best move you can make is to keep your mouth shut


5. They wouldn't yell at you if they didn't care


6. People function better if they are rested and fed


7. You need the people under your command more than they need you


8. Lead from the front


9. Share in dangers and hardships


10. If you aren't bloody and tired by the end of it, you had it easy


11. Life is fragile and fleeting


12. The important things are simple, but the simple things are hard


13. Extend your kindness to strangers, but stay your trust in them.


14. strong stimulation of the vagus nerve can induce bradycardia and syncope..which can be beneficial or detrimental depending upon your aims


15.  It's not the dangers you see that you have to worry about, it's the ones you don't detect.


16.   Anunciate when giving verbal orders


17. Keep your tools clean and ready


18. Keep yourself clean and ready


19. You must be prepared to meet the best and worst of the human condition


20. Life's got nothing to do with what you deserve


21. Death has even less

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned through all of this, is that success is not determined by who is fastest, who is strongest, who is smartest, or who has the most resources. I am not the strongest, fastest or smartest and I have not had the most resources, but I have succeeded not once, but twice in obtaining a title born by only a select few, and rarely found in the same person. I also have the most beautiful and virtuous of women as my wife. These things I have gained not by virtue of my strength, or intelligence, and certainly not by my looks. I have earned these things only because I never gave up on them.