IF—A DISSERTATION TO THE YOUNG PHYSICIAN

If you can keep your head when all about you Are filling it with scientific goo— With glucuronide, aldolase, and buffers, And often with mercaptopurines too; If you can grasp new knowledge as its master And make it answer to your beck and call, And yet remember, when the lab has failed you, Your stethoscope might save you after all: If you can trust yourself when surgeons doubt you And grumble that the kids are just like dad (`Tis then you diplomatically inform them That hyper—osmo—larity is bad!); If you can write the Administrator weekly That the Hospital is going right to hell—