I've always been more of a right-brain type of person. In middle school my siblings opted to do sports, I dropped out and joined a creative writing club instead. I drew, painted, sketched, wrote and crafted my way through elementary, middle and high school thinking I'd perfect my photoshop abilities, pick up skills in coding and become a graphic designer when I grew up. Clearly, that never happened and I ended up on the complete opposite of the job spectrum. But wait. Why do we usually think of science and art as being two totally separate fields?

When I started pharmacy school I lost my drive to create. While I'm sure exams, and extracurriculars contributed, I ultimately blame myself for letting my first love fall by the wayside. I stopped finding time to doodle. I no longer wrote poetry. My paints were touched pretty infrequently. My life became pharmacy, pharmacy, pharmacy. Being focused on school is not something I regret but I do regret thinking that I could never possibly do both; continue to love the arts while also loving pharmacy. I started to realize how much I missed exploring my artistic side during my P2 year. In our College building on campus hangs the beautiful painting "The Gross Clinic" by Thomas Eakins:


After starting school and learning that this painting was of a doctor (Samuel Gross) at Jefferson in our old surgical amphitheater during the 1800s, it quickly became one of my favorite pieces of art on campus. In my P2 year it was temporarily taken down and I found myself hoping every day when I passed through the College building that it'd be put back up. It wasn't long before I realized just how much I was enthralled by that painting, and that my love for it made me nostalgic for the days I spent creating. So slowly, I started again.

I began to use my study breaks creatively rather than using them for social media. It started with just sitting out on my back porch and painting again. By P3 year I was writing again and was even able to submit a poem to our university's literary magazine. In the beginning of my 4th year I picked up brush lettering, a more modern form of calligraphy and used it to help me study.  And of course, I started blogging too! Then during my second APPE, I was introduced to my university's design curriculum included in the medical school's program.

My second block preceptor is co-director of this program and taught me all about using design thinking to solve healthcare problems over our six weeks together. I was floored by this concept and even more in awe of the projects the students in the program were working on. They were all working tirelessly on creative solutions to complicated healthcare problems, from stress ulcers, to hospital noise and wound care. I learned that the design thinking process consists of five principles: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. If you think about it, thats not so different from the pharmacist patient care process: collect, access, plan, implement, and monitor/follow-up.

The idea that we can't be creative in our practice because we're pharmacists is entirely out dated. I believe we get creative every day and it simply goes unacknowledged to ourselves. We get creative with counseling the vast array of patients we care for, we get creative in drug shortages, we get creative in our continued learning, and sometimes in our care plans. Of course there's more! Since rediscovering my creative side and learning about the design thinking, I think about how design impacts us in healthcare every day. I think differently about the problems I encounter. Beforehand I may of thought that a patient who was non-compliant with their inhaler was just being difficult, but now I think of how the design of the inhaler really isn't formulated for compliance. Each inhaler has its own pearls, they aren't standardized, and many are not intuitive. Ease of use plays a big role in compliance. Fellow healthcare students, how often have you had a patient show you how they use their inhaler and its completely right? The number is probably small, but its not their fault! Once you start to see the problems and how they can be helped by better design you see them every where, even with the beloved prescription bottle!

Overall, I think rediscovering my art and being inspired by the work done at our JeffDesign lab has made me a better pharmacist. I think that actively acknowledging your creativity and bringing it into your practice enables you to empathize, and problem-solve in a way that is not accessible otherwise. So before you say "but I'm not creative", I'm going to call BS and insist that you pick up your paint brush anyway, doodle on your papers, start blogging or writing poetry. I think you'll surprise yourself and I think you'll like how it changes you.