Dylan Thomas’ words in his memorable “Reminiscences of childhood” (BBC, 1943) remain forever in my memory. His depiction of a small child’s world, at first, extending not further than his bed. Later, slowly lifting to include the street and the park—seems quite apt in describing the professional development of a young doctor just out of medical school. Like some of the first memories of childhood that remain with us, scenes of my year as an intern are almost as vivid today as when they occurred almost forty years ago.

In my most reckless moment, I crossed a bridge between two hospital buildings in the first morning light after an unending sleepless night shift when I saw a woman standing on the wrong side of the rails, about to jump. At once, I climbed over the rail, held her and persuaded her to come back with me to the psychiatric ward she came from. It ended well for both of us. However, only much later, I realized that she could have easily jumped carrying me with her, and the rescue operation should have been conducted from the bridge, not the street side of the rail.

The moment I became aware of how inexperienced I was, occurred after my first resuscitation. I was sound asleep in a casual empty room I found in some ward after a long hard night in the emergency department, when I was suddenly called by a nurse to see a patient. Her breathing was agonal and she was clearly dying. Without further ado, I started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, fearful of losing time. Not only did I totally fail, but was dismayed to learn afterwards that the patient had disseminated cancer beyond help. Had I succeeded, I would only be prolonging her suffering.

I also remember my most frightening moment. In the afternoon, I was sitting in the corridor, where we had to temporarily place a 52-year-old woman who had just been admitted. She told me that this was her first admission and she had been previously healthy. I was sitting at her bedside trying to get some data before examining her, when she suddenly started vomiting copious amounts of blood. The alarm, the various teams, including the chief of the department, rushing in the corridor to try and stop the gushing hematemesis that turned out to be the presenting manifestation of severe biliary cirrhosis, and—above all—the desperate look on the face of her young daughter who accompanied her were almost too much. The sudden transformation from “health” to being in mortal danger and its meaning to all the family are still as alarming when I think of it, as when they occurred.

My most naïve moment was no doubt when I took my girlfriend, who later became my wife, to visit a patient of mine at his flat. I felt attached to the patient whose name and address I still remember, because he came from the same parts as my parents, and was a particularly nice man. He survived the holocaust but lost a leg fighting as a partisan in the woods, and now lived alone, selling bagels in the street for his living. I thought he would be glad to see me again after his discharge from the hospital. However, he was living in a small ramshackle room downtown, and I felt at once that our unannounced visit made him feel very much embarrassed. I too felt so uncomfortable, that after a few tense minutes, I warmly bade him well and we left. It was to me an important lesson in the necessary boundaries between the doctor and the privacy of his patient.

My most dedicated moment was when finally going home by bus for the weekend. Although I was dead tired, I found myself walking mentally in the ward from one room to another, remembering each patient in each bed, not only by name and face, but also the essentials of the clinical problems, and where the diagnostic work-up or treatment stood. With the passing years, growing responsibilities and increasing number of patients, as well as shortening length of stay, this feat is unfortunately no longer possible.

Each of these experiences lasted not more than a few minutes, and took place in the early eighties of the previous century.

The fact that these incidents stuck with me even after so many years attest not only to the strong impression of first experiences, and their formative role in my “professional adolescence” but to the seriousness, dedication and total commitment with which I viewed my new role as a doctor.

It was not just a profession but rather the choice of a way of life that made me go over the rails, perform a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on an old dying patient I did not know, think of the patient’s family in a moment of sudden mortal danger, or “take my patients home with me” to the extent of pondering their problems and well-being in the few hours I had off duty.

Indeed, I would like to believe that these early concepts have not been eroded by years of practice, and by the burden of expanding responsibilities. But this is not for me to judge.

Like memories of childhood, the memories of my professional childhood “have no order, and no end”.