A report from Lybia of a young Italian emergency physician. What I learned and what I was forgetting

Dear Editor,

Every emergency medicine resident enjoys facing new clinical cases, learning new invasive procedures, and acting like a detective when it comes to mysterious illnesses. Simulations are essential to train non-technical skills during university education, even though someone could believe that they are a waste of time.^1,2 Although all these technical skills are essential to our training, our work goes beyond that. Sometimes we believe that we are superheroes, as we were called during the COVID-19 pandemic. The truth is that we learn every day from the patients and their stories because we treat sick people and not their diseases.^3,4 The ability to communicate correctly with patients, relatives, and caregivers is mandatory for all emergency physicians, both resident and senior, and needs to be taught and learned.^5,6 If we add the cultural background and the chance to work outside Western countries, then we can learn to work for the patient and not on the patient. [...]