Giving advice to medical students makes doctors think about what is important in what they do

Earlier this year I had the privilege of speaking to new medical students at a new medical school—the Hull York Medical School. What should I say? I felt almost overawed. It seemed a major responsibility, although I knew that most of what I said would—thankfully—be forgotten or ignored as the ramblings of yet another “old fart.” Needing help and a method, I started by asking members of our editorial board, doctors from all over the world, what I should say. They responded with enthusiasm, giving me the thought that it might be a good idea to broaden the debate. That's the main reason for this article: it's a preliminary statement in what I hope might be a rich debate. In thinking what we want to say to new entrants to the profession we have to think of what is important about what we do.

What follows is a mixture of my own ideas and those I selected from the responses of the members of the editorial board. Box 1 summarises responses from the BMJ's editorial board, and box 2 gives the full advice of Dave Sackett, the “father of evidence based medicine” (and a member of the board). I also spent some time exploring advice from literature to young people, not specifically medical students (see boxes 3, 4, 5, 7).