Creativity

One of my favorite things about Blogger is getting to click on the button labeled "create." I don't think most people would consider medicine to be a very creative profession. Certainly I don't very often have a tangible product to show for my efforts unless you count the piles of paperwork. As I bet you can guess I am about to tell you all about how creative the practice of medicine really is. First there is the atmosphere of trust and empathy that must be created. I don't mean an atmosphere created by the color of the walls or the furniture. I mean that little bubble of focus that needs to form around the physician and patient. A really good physician can create this type of therapeutic emotional space standing on a street corner with a patient. Next is the creation of knowlege or understanding. This is a team project. The patient and the physician cooperate to produce an understanding of the patient's experience for the physician and of the physician's interpretation for the patient. This knowlege creates the final product of the encounter: the portable bit of wellness in the form of power over the problem which the patient can take with her when she leaves the encounter. I do this a minimum of 30 times a day.