Twenty Rules to Live By

What Doctors Need to Know about Practicing Spiritually-Enhanced Medicine or Twenty Ways to Get More Out of Your Doctor


I’ll outline some rules that I’ve devised during my own time as a resident in training and, later, while I served as an attending neurosurgeon and Chairman of Surgery. I don’t admonish physicians to adhere to a particular code of conduct. Instead, I would urge each physician to see his or her own practice of Medicine in the context of a personal spiritual quest. Ask yourself: During the course of my career as a doctor, did I strive to improve myself to the limit of my abilities so that the healthcare I provided was as efficient, thorough, and compassionate as I could achieve?


It may help you to grasp what I mean by imagining you have arrived at the end of your life. You die and your soul passes up to heaven and now you must face a panel of the world’s greatest physicians. You stand before a heavenly tribunal. You see Hippocrates there. Sir William Osler. Freud. Halsted. And Semmelwiess. Behind the bench are also a few of your own mentors you trained under. The physicians you admired the most during your own professional training.

This panel of doctors will now play back the entire record containing every act you ever carried out as a physician. It will be evaluated and then you will be judged. And not just on the outcomes. This panel is made up of the great souls of Medicine. As they review each act, they will also know what you were thinking and feeling at the time. They will ask you the hardest questions: Did this action make you feel important? Were you being genuinely charitable or just putting on a show? Why were you in such a hurry there? Why didn’t you ever reveal to anyone the error you committed? They will know what was in your heart. They will know if you tried your best.

As terrifying a prospect as this hypothetical tribunal may be, imagine how much better a physician you would become if you critiqued your own medical practices and attitudes in a similar vein. It could push you to see your medical duties not just as an opportunity to practice medicine but also a challenge to

improve yourself spiritually.

Each doctor must decide when and how to undertake this transformational pilgrimage, when to take the soulful plunge. Each of us knows this self-reflective journey will require periods of doubt, loneliness, and confusion. It may be punctuated by pain, suffering, and loss - our own or that of one of our patients. To

find the true heart of Medicine - the true power that elevates any of us to the status of healer--we must ultimately confront ourselves. It’s when we experience forgiveness, understanding, and love for our own fragility that we begin to express “the healing arts” in a powerful and personal way.

We need to discipline ourselves, as rigorously as samurai warriors, constantly reminding ourselves to never tire in our efforts to improve. We must practice repeatedly and strenuously to cherish virtue. We must rehearse the manifestations of our character, to show greater integrity in word and deed. We

must dedicate ourselves to becoming better and worthier. To improve as individuals. To make ourselves into better spouses, parents, and friends. In the process, we also will improve as physicians.

Most of us went into the medical field, dreaming of the ability to express the goodness and kindness we hoped dwells in our hearts. All of us need to periodically get in touch with those dreams, and know they all are still within our reach.



Dr. Allan Hamilton, MD, FACS

Rule No. 1: Treat every patient the way you would want your loved one looked after.

Rule No. 2: Never underestimate the role of luck.

Rule No. 3: Let your premonition, intuition, and even superstition make you a better physician.

Rule No. 4: Let the patient die at God’s hands, not yours.

Rule No. 5: Become the antidote to pain and suffering.

Rule No. 6: Remember: it's the patient's life, so you don't get to be in charge of it.

Rule No. 7: Be courageous. Be compassionate.


Rule No. 8: Never allow the death of any patient to become routine.

Rule No. 9: Never let a day pass without seeing every one of your patients in the hospital.

Rule No. 10: Always round after 5 pm.

Rule No. 11: Bring “homemade cookies” for the nursing staff.

Rule No. 12: Bring order out of chaos.

Rule No. 13: Never betray a patient’s trust.

Rule No. 14: Time is more valuable than money.

Rule No. 15: Pray before surgery.

Rule No. 16: Never doctor your own family.

Rule No. 17: Never take away a patient’s hope.

Rule No. 18: If you can’t figure out the diagnosis in two minutes, you won’t figure it out for at least two days.

Rule No. 19: A surgical case can’t go “beautifully,” if the patient dies.

Rule No. 20: Don’t get data unless you plan to act on it.