What is true learning?

The motivation for learning has changed. It had to. Every single thing I learn now can change someone's life including mine. The differentials, the treatment options, the management plans...it's a sense of ownership; a sense of responsibility beyond scores, ranks; the stuff that makes you want to make a difference, the stuff that makes the difference. There's so much and there's finite time. When there's no time to lose, how can I stop? Medicine is changing every moment but where are we headed? Prolonging life by the years but are we really adding quality to those years? What I learn today, will it be passé tomorrow? What I learn today, will it stand the test of time? What would I have to unlearn? What would I have to relearn because the human memory fails me? What will keep evolving, what will perish; wish there was some way of predicting.
Medicine is as much an art as a science. Let me not sacrifice art for science and let me not forget to objectify. Either way the more I practice the more I will learn and perfect my ways. Yes, some I will learn, and some I will forget but no matter what I will be a better person for I learned. A part of me will change perhaps forever; I guess that is what true learning is all about. Changing and learning how to change and how to be that change. Perturbing as it might be, making my peace and anticipating that my sense of peace will change too. And knowing well that I am not alone in this process, I can't be more thankful to those from whom I learn; my patients, my teachers, my books and lives...mine and that of so many others!