In the wake of these experiences, each of us had been simultaneously and coincidentally trying to make sense of what had happened. "Hey, wait a second," Jess said, leaning over to Tim's bedside table, "you're reading Carol Dweck? I'm reading Carol Dweck!"

Carol Dweck is a developmental psychologist at Stanford University, and Jessica relies on Dweck's book MindSet when she has to help parents understand the long-term benefits of experiencing failure in the relatively safe harbor of middle school. Parents like the one who was upset over her daughter's C+ often try to insulate their kids against these failures by praising their children's intelligence, creativity, and myriad other talents.

It makes sense -- who wouldn't want their kid to feel confident in the face of the pressure to succeed? The problem is that this strategy backfires in the end. Dweck and others have shown that when children try to preserve their parents' perception of their intelligence, they can be less likely to work hard, and less prepared for the inevitable challenges of schooling, and life after it.

On the other side of the bed, Tim relies on Dweck's classic Self-Theories to help medical students preserve their idealism and avoid burnout. In medical school, top students from prestigious colleges come together in the ultimate academic sink or swim -- they face rampant competition and the stresses of life-and-death on hospital wards. Along the way, they realize they can't all be at the top of the class, they have to cope with constant scrutiny and criticism, and they shoulder the stress of illness and death. Amid this, medical students may retreat to the prestige and money of medicine. They can abandon their compassion and fall prey to the much-touted maladies of physicians such as drug addiction, materialism, and well-publicized missteps that hit the national media.

Beyond confirming that we belong together as the biggest geeks in town, our discovery that we are both secret Dweck accolytes is more than just a coincidence. We've actually stumbled upon a sequence of cause and effect, illustrated neatly in the lives of our students. Adolescents who develop resilience in the face of middle school failures develop exactly the kind of skills that will promote success in medical school. Confronted with the rigorous mental and emotional demands of medical school, they are able to maintain their sense of self-worth, and thrive despite adversity.

These are the students who, years later, say they have been through a lot in medical school but still want to change the world one patient at a time. By contrast, the students who come to medical school in a vain effort to earn their parents' approval by earning another 4.0 average and a six-figure salary struggle with the constant critiques and the punishing hours.

Some students and their parents may feel comforted by the platitudes and unearned honors that many teachers are willing to hand out along the way. But these false trophies prevent students from getting the real prizes of education: the resilience and self-worth that lead to grace under pressure, the ability to face adversity with intelligence and equilibrium. In the end, these are the sort of doctors you want at your bedside.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.