This Ebola doctor has a powerful message for medical students

One of the American doctors who contracted Ebola while treating the disease in Liberia, gave an inspirational speech to medical graduates in the US at the weekend.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony at the Indiana University school of medicine on Saturday, Dr Kent Brantly urged students not to feel like failures if they lose patients.

Losing so many patients certainly was difficult, but it didn’t make me feel like a failure as a physician because I had learned that there was so much more to being a physician than curing illness. That’s not the most important thing we do. The most important thing we do is enter into the suffering of others.

• Dr Kent Brantly

Brantly, who explained that he lost 20 patients to the disease before he had to be treated himself, instead said the graduates should focus on the positive difference they do make. The Indianapolis Star quotes him as saying:

You are going to share in the most intimate part of your patients’ lives. You will share in their moments of tragedy, but you will also share in their moments of greatest joy. You will make a difference in people’s lives and you will make a difference in the world.

• Dr Kent Brantly

The World Health Organisation declared Liberia Ebola-free on Saturday, after 42 continuous days without any new cases. Sierra Leone and Guinea continue to fight the disease which has now claimed more than 11,000 lives across West Africa.

More: British nurse who survived Ebola heads back to fight the epidemic