Archive for the ‘Healthcare’ Category

Residency as Dance: (Gradually) Replacing One of Your Left Feet

Posted: November 7, 2017 in Clinical Practice, Creativity, Dance, Healthcare, Medicine, Residency
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Image Credit: Pinterest.co.uk

There are many reasons to love 90’s hip-hop and R & B. Only recently, I offered a brief lecture to my ward team in which I deconstructed the iconic music video “Motownphilly” by Boys II Men. The exercise provoked teenage memories of working on synchronized high energy dance moves with one of my good neighborhood friends, Martin. The moment when your conscious effort fades away and the music takes over your body as you execute the moves to the building cheers of friends at a party is one of those great life feelings. 
Residency feels like learning a dance . . . 

But, I don’t always learn the steps in order.

There are many steps! 

I can be asked to perform at any time “What do you want to do for the patient?”

The music is always changing, from the steady mid-tempo of the wards to the upbeat Emergency Room to the slow dance of clinic (of course, the music can instantly change within all three settings as well). 

I can’t lead all the time- sometimes I only get to the best part of the room by letting my patient lead. 

I sweat, I get tired, I wonder how many minutes are left in the song. Can’t I leave the dancefloor for a minute? Then, this little dancer in clinic shows me a new move: It’s called “Hug the Doctor.” It’s a great move and easy to learn. It also gets me to the end of the song . . .

And sometimes, the music skips. I can’t figure out the problem or what to do next or how to get past an impasse of opposing lyrics. 

And sometimes, I’m back on the dance floor with Martin. The patient presentations flow with energy and purpose. Everyone recognizes the beat of a good plan. The steady drum of knowledge is overlaid with a couple of compassion tracks and we have a hit. The team may not be dancing on the desks of the nursing stations, but they’re thinking about it . . .

Learning from Sherlock Holmes . . .

Posted: March 20, 2016 in Clinical Practice, Creativity, Healthcare, Medical School, Medicine, Neurosurgery, Non-linear thinking, Problem-solving
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Alicexz.deviantart.com

One of the interesting things about being in medicine is that friends and family consult you with all kinds of medical questions at any time. The questions span speciality (I was asked about a brain tumor, cramping and a bad cough in the same week!) Honestly, I enjoy it: it’s like an unplanned case of the day, and it’s a chance to be helpful. In many cases, I can simply put someone at ease. The movie “Dead Poet’s Socity” spoke about two kinds of professions, the “life sustaining” ones like medicine and engineering and the “life enriching” ones like literature, music and the fine arts. My reward in Acting was to (ideally) give my audiences a meaningful emotional experience by the end of the play through the life of my character, that is enrichment. In medicine, my reward is to use medical knowledge and skills to help patients feel better, sustainment. So, I appreciate the inquiring phone calls and texts and I would like to take you back to one in particular . . .

Last week, my sister texted me, concerned that her daughter (my ridiculously cute niece:) had a high fever and a cough. As I gathered the history and started working through the mental algorithms for what could be wrong, I happened to catch my niece’s voice in the background. She simply asked “What is that?” I think I have may have gotten more information from that audio signal than almost anything else in her story. Why? People who feel very sick are not curious. One of the things we learned in evaluating pediatric fever is that the exact tempertature is not as important as how the child appears. That takes observation, attention. I appreciate that because it feels clinical. A computer can work through algorithms but a only a clinician can be a medical Sherlock Holmes and notice personal, intangible atrributes that crack the “case.”

Paying attention matters not only in diagnosis but treatment. While on a neurosurgery service last year, I encountered a patient who required an operation to remove a brain tumor. Due to the tumor size and location, the patient had a devastating choice, to either lose the ability to read or to hear on that side, depending on which surgical approach was taken. Losing hearing or reading is more than a medical choice, it is a human one. One must ask the difficult question of which option would reduce one’s sense of self more profoundly. This question is approached by a patient who pays real attention to who she is, as well as family members and yes, doctors, who have done the same. No matter our profession, we will learn the same algorithms: law students learn the law, pharmacy students learn the drug mechanisms, but effective decision making in the grey areas seems to reward those who pay close attention to the nuances that no curriculum can adequately capture. Even in the enrichment professions, the actor who not only knows the lines but pays attention to the demands of the performance moment will respond with that spontaneous artistic choice that we recognize as brilliance . . .

By the way, I think we made the right call on my niece. She is doing well . . .

 

Do it Yourself (or with others) An Introduction . . .

Posted: November 1, 2015 in Business, Creativity, Design, DIY, Do-it-Yourself, Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, Maker, Making, Medical School, Medicine, Technology
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Embrace

Photo Credit: EmbraceGlobal.org

I have never considered myself a DIY, use my hands to fix stuff sort of guy. I have always assumed that inclination was part of a different personality type. I am more naturally drawn to ideas, language, music, abstract science concepts and other things you can’t hammer a nail into. But in coming home this week from an interesting event called #wemakehealth I was forced to challenge some of my assumptions. #wemakehealth is an example of the “maker movement” a growing group of people from professions as diverse as medicine, business, design, and technology united by a common purpose, to make everyone into a maker.

So, what is a maker?

I understand it to be anyone who decides that she will not wait for a solution to handed down, but will get her hands dirty and build one now. And that is physically build it.  One speaker referred to it as “democratizing engineering”; an example would be the people who helped develop a warming blanket (known as Embrace) for premature babies in developing countries; this simple device is saving multiple lives where incubators are not available. The idea for this blanket emerged from a graduate school class assignment . . .

So what assumptions does this movement challenge?

That most of us can only be consumers of something someone else has made.

That if you’re not naturally “crafty”, building things is not really for you.

That you need tremendous background in design and engineering to build something from scratch with your hands.

I think we can agree that most things are more interesting to do than to watch. Yet, we somehow accept that other people who are more talented, educated etc must do all our building for us. This doesn’t mean that we suddenly have to try building complex computers. In fact, many incredibly useful objects are quite simple in their design (that warming blanket). I feel like the perfect messenger for this message precisely because I didn’t grow up trying to fix things and build stuff. And yet, in medicine, I was strongly drawn to surgery. There is something undeniably fulfilling about physically fixing a problem and being able to look upon your work. When I was given the chance to close incisions on the babies we were operating on in Kenya, I would look over my work the next day on rounds and if the wound was “clean, dry and intact” it was a tremendous source of pride. I often side with those who argue that we are born creative but have creativity educated out of us, and conclude falsely that it is the reserve of a select few. Now, I also wonder whether if there is something fundamentally human about building, making physical creations. The creation may be a meal, a painting, a creative blood pressure monitor, but it’s something. Perhaps, we were not made only to consume or roam the halls of the abstract, however enticing. Making is also key to progress in healthcare where so many structures, devices, procedures and processes remain opaque. Can we make something better ourselves? Can we stop waiting? Incidentally, #wearenotwaiting is the hashtag for the NightScout project, comprising a group of parents who came up with a creative way to remotely monitor their diabetic childrens’ blood glucose levels on cellphones . . .

So, to explore these ideas further, I am starting a brief blog series on making. I’ll bring in voices from the maker movement as well as practical ways to explore your own potential as a maker. If can I do this, trust me, anyone can!