Abstract
Written from the author’s multiple perspectives as a medical educator, physician, and cancer survivor, this reflective piece explores professional identity formation as a process that extends beyond the acquisition of communication skills, drawing attention to the distinction between language and communication. By weaving together educational practice and lived experience, the text invites readers to pause and consider how becoming a doctor is a deeply personal process that requires space for reflection, uncertainty, and the search for one’s own language and meaning, in teaching as well as in our personal and professional lives.