creativity

[ilovepath]

path has a lot of creative art in it....histopath is a very abstract thing and takes an abstract eye to pick out on themes....architectures, mitosis, etc.
do you think it's one of the ideosyncracies of medicine where ur job is an aesthetic appreciation...which is completely devoid in clinical med?

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[yaah]

Well, you could also argue that path requires a lot of pattern recognition, spatial techniques, etc, things that are more "math" related. All specialties have a bit of art to them, as you have to weigh pros and cons, weed out things from differentials, etc.

 

[ilovepath]

i meant art in a purely visual way. u see gross vs. in clinic where they guess or fake pe. patterns are appreciated as variations of the physiological norm vs. pathology.
i guess i wanted to find the jaded pathologists in here who hated the cookie cutter approach to clinical medicine and get off on the work they do now. i'm only a med student w/ finite experience.......but this is how i feel based on the path experience i've had.
the path ppl i've had seem to reflect more creatively on their work.

 

[Cabbage Head]

i meant art in a purely visual way. u see gross vs. in clinic where they guess or fake pe. patterns are appreciated as variations of the physiological norm vs. pathology.
i guess i wanted to find the jaded pathologists in here who hated the cookie cutter approach to clinical medicine and get off on the work they do now. i'm only a med student w/ finite experience.......but this is how i feel based on the path experience i've had.
the path ppl i've had seem to reflect more creatively on their work.

You sound like a budding cytologist.

 

[drPLUM]

i guess i wanted to find the jaded pathologists in here who hated the cookie cutter approach to clinical medicine and get off on the work they do now.

Different strokes for different folks. If you go over to the IM forum people will talk about how pathology is nothing more than rote memorization and pattern recognition while IM is about the art of medicine. "Cookie-cutter is in the eye of the beholder" I suppose. Also, I hope to never describe myself as a "jaded pathologist" although I do like pathology a lot more than clinical medicine. Maybe "jaded pimp" because everybody knows pimpin' aint easy.

 

[pathdawg]

i meant art in a purely visual way. u see gross vs. in clinic where they guess or fake pe. patterns are appreciated as variations of the physiological norm vs. pathology.
i guess i wanted to find the jaded pathologists in here who hated the cookie cutter approach to clinical medicine and get off on the work they do now. i'm only a med student w/ finite experience.......but this is how i feel based on the path experience i've had.
the path ppl i've had seem to reflect more creatively on their work.

Well, I am a jaded pathologist and I often compare "this thing of ours" (a nod to all you Sopranos fans out there) to art history. In both surgical pathology and art history, we integrate still pictures into deeper meaning. For example, if you think about it, what we do as pathologists is see a picture and tell a story: "this slide represents a tumor which will behave in this way and should be treated in this way." All this from a single still picture of a moment in time. Art historians do the same thing: "this painting represents this artist's whatever period and symbolizes his point of view about art or life or whatever." In both, we can recognize subtleties and relate a story. If you think about it, its pretty high cognitive level stuff.

btw, every field in medicine has some "cookie cutter" component to it. Nature of the beast.