Creativity.......again, and some shit

I had a discussion with Gotya recently about creativity and how it might manifest in his profession, as well as mine. He has an argument that I wasted whatever creativity I had in going into medicine which...probably..... is a killer of creative thought in all the protocol based management, memory intensive curricula with no scope for laterality, and all the legal ramifications of possible 'therapeutic misadventures' that creativity needs allowance for.

I was leafing through some of the paintings which his father had made and was amazed that so much creativity flowed through the hands of someone you might not even notice as anyone beyond what he appears..simple/prototype middle class mensch. Conversation drifted to a statement that creative people with poor hastakala skills ( I am making this word up for paucity of any suitable) make it as abstract artists. And that creativity is in thought, it is an idea..which manifests in a abstract painting or a photograph or a innovative program or entrepreneurial breakthrough idea.Where could you possibly fit in medicine in this?Did I really kill whatever iota of creativity I had- I can't draw like Gotya's dad, nor click a great photo nor sculpt, and my bestest poetry was at best freshlimesoda.com stuff, (which is lost with that website going off webspace)- coming into medicine?

Which brings us to a question which I have answered many people while interviewing , but never asked myself when I entered medicine.
" What attracted you to medicine?"
Good marks?!!
People say, or are told to say that they recognized a trait in themselves which they nurtured through their career.Thats kosher interview stuff. Many of us are never so far sighted unfortunately.We never understand the ramifications of what a career in medicine might mean when we take it up after Std XII, when angst, puberty, peer influence and Erikson's stages are wreaking havoc on thought process . Which is not to say that no one should take medicine. But which is to reinforce that you need to recognize and follow what is innate in yourself.For which you need time to inflect.Which is why the American system is not all bad....premed for 2-3 years, then med school. Gives you time to ripen your thought.

Taunts like Gotya's do make me ponder.When we are at crossroads again....after MBBS, after MD, after DM...do we use our faculties well and choose? Or get down to mugging MCQs , then shall choose depending on our rank.Then issues like a DGO in a big hospital versus a MD in rural hospital factor in....how sadder can it get. My friend who did Ob/Gy from BJ , and was a very popular lecturer till recently, rebelled against his wishes for a lost cause of group based practice and took up the subject when he could have well gone in for Medicine,which he liked.
Another friend won't come to the US for a course longer than two years because he has commitments to 'settling into life'.Living for your ideas is selfish, so they tell me.

Now that we have made a jump and are well into 'the system', lets also look at how Gotya is wrong. His argument would mean that doctors are uncreative people. Which is as atrocious an assumption as mine in even believing him for a minute, and coming up with the above. A creative medicine person will diagnosticate without tests,s/he will recognize patterns, s/he will ask himself questions and research for answers.I had written earlier on this blog about creativity and the physician...I had also mentioned about low cost innovative technology that people used in an appropriate setting and tasted remarkably successful results. People remain what they are. Creativity doesn't die.It manifests differently.Each circumstance offers an opportunity to use your creativity in a setting appropriate manner.You can always stretch the limits on this, you just have to have to want to do it( and not feel guilty about it).
Nothing sums it up better than the formula that Harvard cognitive neuroscientist Joshua Greene proposes (in the image above)

FECAL TRANSPLANTATION

You could have better terminology for this. Is it just getting some yucky stuff to sound fashionable?Anyways...Aas, Gessert et al have done it for C difficile infusing stool through a NG tube, others have done it through enemas, the logic being resurrecting the gut flora balance.They could not prove whether it was the Vanco pretreatment or the stool feeds( !!!) which cured relapses. But imagine...calling yourself a transplant donor when all you have to do is poop...and having a stool harvester team - what do you call them- FillThee PassTurds.
Hope it catches on in a more appealing tablet form or so.

Anyways..among other stuff, do read Medvalley High's rants about what he calls the 0.7% challenge

Might go on an outing this week....posts might dry up a bit.
Adios.