We must be aware that freedom from organic disease alone can not be our goal. The optimal functioning of the individual must be our aim, and that it occur in an environment conducive to a fuller life. We must be aware that man does not live by bread alone, nor by his antihypertensive pill alone. We must be citizens of the community, helping to make it a better place for the raising of our children, for a fuller educational opportunity, for the development of the arts and other cultural aspects which help raise man above the level of animal life.
Thus, the making of a doctor almost begins at his mother's knee. Nurtured further by society and its educational and Cultural institutions, he is finally given a privilege by society, to act in a responsible way in furthering the health, both physical and mental, of those he calls his patients. (Delivered to medical students and faculty, School of Medicine, University of South Dakota, May 1976 by Mitchell I. Rubin, MD, Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics, State University of New York at Buffalo, and Consultant in Pediatrics, Medical University of South Carolina).
