You are in a very difficult profession. And a very responsible one. And very beautiful. You make decisions about the choice of treatment, guided by the good of the patient, informing about the effects of the treatment, you rejoice at every recovery, but sometimes, you also endure the frustrations of the patient, their anger, their sadness at losing their health, at having to accept something inevitable. Advances in technology mean that you have to continually learn, improve your skills in order to effectively help others. As time passes, and you gather experience, you notice that it is not only modern technology that determines the effectiveness of treatment. Having taught first-year medical students for a number of years, I have noticed how scared they are. How often they fear contact with the patient and, above all, the fact that they will have to TALK to the patient, confront their suffering, all the misery they carry on their shoulders, and sometimes "accept" their anger, crying and grief. Sometimes the fear is so great that would-be doctors take cover with medical procedures, modern technology, "medoma". It is a form of escape from the patient as well as from confronting oneself, one's own emotions that are difficult to control, one's own unfinished business and disordered emotions related to death and dying. Some are unable to deal with these emotions and the topics that trigger them. May there be as few such doctors as possible. Being a doctor requires courage not only in making decisions about treatment, but also in confronting oneself. Through emotional development, empathy, every relationship with the patient becomes creative, the phenomenon of the encounter activates the potential to fight the disease, gives hope and lowers the patient's anxiety level. Such a relationship is also creative for the doctor. It develops his or her self-awareness in the area of emotions, value networks, needs. Of course, a doctor does not have to be a psychologist. Each of the professions, doctor and psychologist, has separate areas of activity, tools for helping, research problems, etc. However, no one needs to be convinced that a doctor should master certain psychological competences that will help him or her to achieve greater job satisfaction, to be more effective in treatment. A retrospective at the end of one's working life will perhaps allow one to think that I had a good job, to which it was worth devoting a large part of one's life. And that is what this book is about.
Ewa Mojs, Grażyna Teusz