A Renewed Conviction to Write

I recently finished Atul Gawande's "Better". In the last section entitled "Changing Doctors, Changing Outcomes", adapted from a speech Gawande gave to a class of medical students, he expounds on a list of five suggestions "for how one might make a worthy difference, for how one might become, in other words, a positive deviant."

I've been struggling with this lately, this feeling of being merely "a cog in a machine". Hospitals are enormous places, patients come and go, residents rotate out every three months... it is very difficult sometimes to feel as though you are ever making much of an impact on anyone's life.

Although primarily aimed at physicians, I believe Gawande's suggestions can be applied to many professions in health care. And so today I take Gawande's fourth suggestion: "write something." He explains: "by soliciting modest contributions from the many,we have produced a store of collective know-how with far greater power than any individual could have achieved." Thus we improve the system. And, personally, Gawande observes, "writing lets you step back and think through a problem. Even the angriest rant forces the writer to achieve a degree of thoughtfulness." Thus we improve ourselves.

So, after quite a hiatus, here's to a renewed adventure in blogging.