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So often, the humanities are positioned on the opposite side of the spectrum as medicine. The two are thought to be entirely separate disciplines, with creativity aligning with humanities and arts, and rationality and structure aligning with medicine. This is far from the truth, and even further from the ideal. A successful medical professional incorporates creativity in just about every aspect of their patient-facing interaction, research, and treatments.

Even the foundation and history of medicine is based on creativity and innovation. It is a field that is continuously striving to move forward and needs thinkers who are innovative and unafraid to think outside the box to do so. You are so often inventing the uninvented, tapping into a need that is not always recognized or not always clear cut. 

At the very core, medicine starts with human interaction. They read a body through a combination of what a person says and what they don’t say, through observation and implication. Every patient is different in their expression of pain and distress, and a medical issue that they are presenting is more often than not far from obvious. That is why it is the medical professional’s job to fill in the blanks, write the story based on only a few chapters. Constant innovation in the medical field is not a luxury, but a necessity for society to move forward. 

So many incredible progressions and discoveries were accidents. They are a product of exploration and the ability to react quickly and creatively. For instance, Alexander Fleming was experimenting with a bacteria in 1928, which had been destroyed by a mold he grew in a petri dish. “Fleming had discovered the first antibiotic, which he called penicillin. The drug has saved countless lives, and Alexander Fleming was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1945.”

We can never be satisfied with the current system, especially when it comes to healthcare and medicine. Dissatisfaction and inability to settle work in tandem with the recognition that there is no ceiling, no pinnacle to modern medicine.