This physician brought his right brain back from the brink of death

I checked my right brain at the door when I started medical school in 1995.  Writing, performing music, and acting didn’t make it in.  How could they?  I had very little free time and why would I want to cling to touchy-feely distractions?  I was prepared to sacrifice personal interests and passions to clear my mental decks.  I wanted to dedicate all my brain power to the promise of learning critical information that would empower me to care for the ill.  It was a left brain dominant exercise for sure.   And walking the hill at my graduation, I remember thinking I had given up my love for art and beauty in the world to fill my mind with far too much clinically irrelevant minutiae. I had screwed up very, very badly.  No doubt, many of my peers made the same mistake I did when we started med school.  Until recent life events smacked me upside the head (much, much more on that later), I had given up on my right brain enthusiasms.  On an EEG, it would have been a virtual flat-line.  The creative, inventive, passionate side of me was in squalor and disrepair.  What I thought had been an informed decision to become a brilliant doctor (and I only use that adjective as a hypothetical description, not necessarily my reality!) left me as a doctor who only used half his brain.  That, dear reader, was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Continue reading ... Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social me...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Practice Management Source Type: blogs