To a medical student, a patient represents not just a potential diagnosis but a learning opportunity. To show their appreciation, the medical students at McMaster University decided to design a card that they could give out to patients “to let them know how important and valued their role is in our education,” says student Tiffaney Krushel.
The image on the card was drawn by cartoonist Lynn Johnston, internationally known for her comic strip For Better or For Worse, which appears in more than 2,000 newspapers in 22 countries. She worked as a medical artist for the fledgling school of medicine at McMaster in the late 1960s, creating illustrations for the first medical students.
The message inside the card is a modified quote from Sir William Osler: “We are taught that medicine is learned by the bedside, not in the classroom. Thank you for being a teacher.”