The term “role model” refers to someone who is a colleague, often an older and more experienced individual, commonly imitated by younger colleagues. This interaction usually occurs in a professional setting. A role model can also be a mentor, a topic on which I have written in another editorial.1 In thinking about this topic recently, I was struck by how much of my own professional behavior was and still is modeled after traits that I found admirable in various individuals from my early educational and professional life.
You also may find it interesting that this term first appeared in Robert K. Merton’s socialization research of medical students.2 Merton suggested that students compare themselves with individuals or reference groups of people who occupied the social role to which they themselves aspired. As for me, I am convinced that role modeling begins in early childhood. For instance, our 2.5-year-old granddaughter says, “I do it” about something and then attempts to imitate how my daughter, my wife, or I have performed some activity. My wife and I are convinced that we ourselves imitate the hard-working and serious demeanor of our parents, who lived through the great economic depression of the 1930s. My university and medical school teachers or career mentors served as role models for professional behaviors I still practice. Let me give you some specific examples. During my undergraduate years at Yale University, I consciously wished to imitate the style and substance of 3 individuals. The characteristics I admired have become part of my own daily work personality.
The first of these role models was Charles Garside, an assistant professor of European history who lectured to a vast class in the first semester of a European history survey course. Professor Garside was one of the most charismatic and inspiring speakers that I had ever seen up to that time in my life. As a result of his highly effective teaching skills, my roommate and I made great efforts to assimilate the huge amount of material that this course covered. His lectures were so exciting that we literally felt like we were “walking on air” when we left the classroom…
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— Joseph S. Alpert, MD, editor-in-chief, American Journal of Medicine
This article originally appeared in the April 2011 issue of The American Journal of Medicine.
