[The doctor is a social animal. The lives of those who care between reading, writing and human relationships.]

This is a letter to a young friend who has become a paediatrician. It is a senior paediatrician, trying to transmit something useful, that writes it. The lives of those who care are made of many human relationships, a lot of reading, more different interpretations of these relationships and these readings. Each of us will build over the years their ethical model, their ability to discuss new problems and new cases with colleagues, their ability to critically analyse the scientific literature as well as the willingness to listen to patients and families. In other words each of us builds their own way of being a doctor. In fact, as the doctor's life goes on over the years, each of us builds "their" own defects. And with time the new and old defects will overlap as well as our most beautiful aspirations. Our way of being doctor changes for many reasons, but mainly it changes due to the effect of the world around us. The doctor's life enters into people's lives. Our defects enter into people's lives and are hard to change, far more than to interpret. Writing is the best way to enter our lives, to remain alert, to discover how "our" consciousness is shaped and by whom. Scientific journals have their own rules, and these rules do not always coincide with those of honest writing, but another friend asked the author to try to make them compatible and so he discovered that sometimes these rules could even be helpful. Good friends are the key to becoming a doctor.