- With Mayo Clinic oncologist
Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
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Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
"The magic of the electronic village is transforming health information. The mouse and keyboard have extended the stethoscope to the 500 million people now online." - Dr. Edward Creagan
The power of the medium inspires Dr. Edward Creagan as he searches for ways to share Mayo Clinic's vast resources with the general public.
Dr. Creagan, a Newark, N.J., native, is board certified in internal medicine, medical oncology, and hospice medicine and palliative care. He has been with Mayo Clinic since 1973 and in 1999 was president of the staff of Mayo Clinic. Dr. Creagan, a professor of medical oncology at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, was honored in 1995 with the John and Roma Rouse Professor of Humanism in Medicine Award and in 1992 with the Distinguished Mayo Clinician Award, Mayo's highest recognition. He has been recognized with the American Cancer Society Professorship of Clinical Oncology.
He describes his areas of special interest as "wellness as a bio-psycho-social-spiritual-financial model" and fitness, mind-body connection, aging and burnout.
Dr. Creagan has been an associate medical editor with Mayo Clinic's Web sites and has edited publications and CD-ROMs and reviewed articles.
"We the team of (the Web site) provide reliable, easy-to-understand health and wellness information so that each of us can have productive, meaningful lives," he says.
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Stress blog
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April 10, 2009
Finding calm in the storm
By Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
Most of us are familiar with the concept of the "perfect storm." This term comes from a book and later a movie about a combination of wind, weather and temperature that created the storm of the century. But let me share with you my own perfect storm.
While visiting with patients and their families in our hospital last week, I was deluged with requests for my attention: my cell phone cried out, my medical pager beeped and text streamed across my pager. At the same time, colleagues had questions and inquiries about medical matters. It was a recipe for a physical and a psychological meltdown!
We know from research that when a mouse is given electrical shocks that he can control or escape, the mouse will do just fine. However, if the mouse is intermittently shocked and has no escape and no control, he will give up and become physically ill. Is it any wonder that many of us are buckling under the influence of techno-stress?
Now, please understand that these events were not life-and-death medical emergencies. They were primarily scheduling and administrative responsibilities. Still it was a real wake-up call for me that we cannot be passive about maintaining some control over our lives.
This experience made me understand a comment from a colleague over the weekend, who told me that he'd slept all day Saturday after a hectic week at work. "The tank was dry, there was nothing left, and I needed time to recuperate," he explained.
So, from my own experience and that of my colleague, here are a couple of things that I need to do to survive. This is nothing new, but we all need to be reminded to be preemptive and proactive as we go through our daily lives. So, here are some of the things I am much more consciously doing:
- Batching calls and e-mails to be handled at one time. Obviously, the emergency cannot be ignored, but in reality there are not many emergencies.
- Writing a to-do list that focuses on the one or two "mission critical" tasks of the day and focusing on completing those tasks.
- Carving out time to chill, recover and recuperate. Obviously, what provides rejuvenation is different for each of us. It may be a warm bath, a yoga session, running or some similar activity. We all need time to repair our souls.
We are all in the same boat here. Please share with us how you weather the storm.
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