UNIT 6 The Making of a Surgeon课文翻译大学英语二

UNIT 6 The Making of a Surgeon
A famous surgeon tells about the importance of self-confidence from his own experience.
How does a doctor recognize the point in time when he is finally a "surgeon"? As my year as chief resident drew to a close I asked myself this question on more than one occasion.
The answer, I concluded, was self-confidence. When you can say to yourself, "There is no surgical patient I cannot treat competently, treat just as well as or better than any other surgeon" - then, and not until then, you are indeed a surgeon. I was nearing that point.
Take, for example, the emergency situations that we encountered almost every night. The first few months of the year I had dreaded the ringing of the telephone. I knew it meant another critical decision to be made. Often, after I had told Walt or Larry what to do in a particular situation, I'd have trouble getting back to sleep. I'd review all the facts of the case and, not infrequently, wonder if I hadn't made a poor decision. More than once at two or three in the morning, after lying awake for an hour, I'd get out of bed, dress and drive to the hospital to see the patient myself. It was the only way I could find the peace of mind I needed to relax.
Now, in the last month of my residency, sleeping was no longer a problem. There were still situations in which I couldn't be certain my decision had been the right one, but I had learned to accept this as a constant problem for a surgeon, one that could never be completely resolved - and I could live with it. So, once I had made a considered decision, I no longer dwelt on it. Reviewing it wasn't going to help and I knew that with my knowledge and experience, any decision I'd made was bound to be a sound one. It was a nice feeling.
In the operating room I was equally confident. I knew I had the knowledge, the skill, the experience to handle any surgical situation I'd ever encounter in practice. There were no more butterflies in my stomach when I opened up an abdomen or a chest. I knew that even if the case was one in which it was impossible to anticipate the problem in advance, I could handle whatever l found. I'd sweated through my share of stab wounds of the belly, of punctured lungs, of compound fractures. I had sweated over them for five years. I didn't need to sweat any more.
Nor was I afraid of making mistakes. I knew that when I was out in practice I would inevitably err at one time or another and operate on someone who didn't need surgery or sit on someone who did. Five years earlier - even one year earlier - I wouldn't have been
able to live with myself if I had had to take sole responsibility for a mistake in judgment. Now I could. I still dreaded errors - would do my best to avoid them -- but I knew they were part of a surgeon's life. I could accept this fact with calmness because I knew that if I wasn't able to avoid a mistake, chances were that no other surgeon could have, either.
This all sounds conceited and I guess it is - but a surgeon needs conceit. He needs it to encourage him in trying moments when he's bothered by the doubts and uncertainties that are part of the practice of medicine. He has to feel that he's as good as and probably better than any other surgeon in the world. Call it conceit - call it self-confidence; whatever it was, I had it.
一位着名的外科大夫告诉说，在他的经历中自信是重要的。

一名外科大夫的成功之道
诺兰博士
一名医生是怎样看待他成为一名外科大夫那一刻的当我做为一名住院医生的岁月即将结束时我不止一次地这样问自己。

这个答案，我判断，是自信。

当你能对自己说，"没有外科病人我不能熟练治疗，就像其他外科大夫治疗的一样好甚至比他们还要好"——那么，一直到这时候，你才确实是一名外科大夫。

我正在期待着这一刻。

例如，我们几乎每天夜晚都要遇到紧急状态。

这一年开头的几个月我害怕电话铃声响起。

我知道它意味着另一次批评的机会被制造。

经常，当我告诉瓦特或劳瑞在一个特殊的情形下做什么之后，我很难再入睡了。

我回想这件事的全部事实，不是少有的，想知道我是否已经做了一个糟糕的决定。

不止一次在凌晨2点至3点，我醒着躺在床上一个小时，就起床，穿上衣服并驱车到医院看望我的病人。

这是我能够找到的让心灵平静并松驰下来的惟一途径。

现在，在我的住院实习的最后一个月，睡觉不再是一个问题。

依然有我不能确定我的决定是否正确的情形，但我已经了解到一名外科大夫存在的经常的问题，他从来不能够完全能解决——并且我能够与它同在。

于是，我做出了一个深思熟虑的决定，我不再想这事。

回想将是无助的并且我知道凭我的知识与能力，我所做出的决定是正确的。

这是一种很不错的感觉。

在手术室里，我通常是自信的。

我知道我有知识、技术，和在以往实践中遭遇到的紧急情形的把握能力。

没有更多的紧张当我切开一个腹部或一个胸腔时。

我知道即使这个病例不能够预见前进中的问题，但我能够把握住我发现的什么。

我出的汗流过戳伤的肺、刺穿的胃和粉碎性骨折的我的部分。

我已经流汗淌过这些部位有5年了。

我不需要出更多的汗。

现在我也不害怕出错。

当我结束实习期后我知道自己不可避免地要出一次又一次错，并且为不需要做手术的人做了手术或者忽视了某人的这种情形。

5年前——甚至一年前——我还不能够单独地为自己判断上出现的错误负责任。

现在我能够。

我仍然害怕出错——我会尽
量做得好一些以避免它——但我知道它们是一名外科大夫生命中的一部分。

我能够镇静地接受这个事实因为我知道我是不能够避免错误的，别的外科大夫也难以避免。

这些话听起来挺自负的并且我猜它是如此——但一个外科大夫需要良好的自我感觉。

他需要它鼓励他在努力的这一刻当他困惑于医疗过程中常有的怀疑与不确定时。

他不得不感觉他与世界上其他所有的外科大夫一样好甚至还要强。

称之为自负——称它为自信；无论它是什么，我拥用它。