Dear Marianne:

This is not my field, but I suspect that Medicine involves a good deal of creativity. Inventions like bypass or stents seem to me highly creative. I also think that physicians have a good margin of creativity when they treat their patients. 

Dear Marianne:

This is not my field, but I suspect that Medicine involves a good deal of creativity. Inventions like bypass or stents seem to me highly creative. I also think that physicians have a good margin of creativity when they treat their patients. 

Dear Marianne,

Indeed each patient requires different approach.

While protocols restrict creativity, the medicine professionals should remain creative.

To do so does not mean to go against universal protocols.

Remain within the creative line while treating the patients with unique treatment.

The balancing act is not easy but it is not difficult either.

In short, all have to benefit from this medicine profession creativity at minimal cost.

Best regards - Mariam

Medicine profession is practiced based on the already evolved treatment plan based on individual's constitution or universality of diagnosis. However, chances of creativity are there if a physician diagnoses the problem and designs the treatment plan taking into account the various interconnected elements of a patient's health. But nowadays, practitioners are seldom seen to come up with any novel approach. Their diagnosis is mostly dependent of pathological and other high costing tests. Experience and practitioners own expertise based diagnosis as done our earlier ancient physicians (by just observing the patients, nerves palpitation, altered be physical mental status), which hold certain degree of creativity, has almost vanished now.  

There is certainly room in medicine for creativity (aside from the obvious 'creative efforts' of advertisers and the like that "invent" disease, treatments, and treatment models to support pharmaceutical sales (just one example being the forwarding of the "chemical imbalance" theory that launched anti-dep's sales in the early 80s ..))

(Note: there was no reference in the question posed wrt whether creativity should be taken as a "positive" or a "negative" activity...)

As for patient care (with regard specifically to internists (aka "primary care doc's")), with the current way health care is served in the US, in the 10, 15 min consultation you get with a doc --and to be fair, w/a doctor whose policies are ever more closely dictated by government  and big insurance... there is little time to id symptoms and write out a prescription (which would appear to be the purpose (now) of an office visit...), let alone ferret out the actual CAUSE of the symptom(s)...

This situation might be improved if doctors were not merely "trained" to treat (as opposed to solve..) problems. In lacking fundamental knowledge in even basic science (not to mention facility with algebra (let alone first year calculus)), most American doc's couldn't really BE creative even if they HAD the desire or time.

I suspect though, that only a relatively small number of researchers perform the bulk of innovation in any field of endeavor anyway. I suspect that the ability to innovate is not JUST a function of intelligence and discipline (qualities I would allow most doc's DO possess) ... which leads me to wonder to what creativity is tied ...

“Nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and the poor.” — Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

Brenda: YES

Yogesh: Would that were true...

Not disparaging individuals just describing the inadequacies of what ideally could be education for MDs but in reality, is but mere "training".  

Because I think creativity IS more than a function of just intellect and discipline, and further, have observed that the majority of innovation comes from a minority of individuals (in any field of endeavor), MDs (and others who are likewise) not fundamentally educated, would certainly be even less prone to creativity as a group.  Obviously MDs' ability to address difficult patients in a restricted timeframe, to side-step government policy/bureaucracy, etc. while (as a non-specialist) still managing to earn at least 5 times the average American income (for a family of 4) (all without ever even attempting to id (let alone treat) the reason for patients' symptoms) would take SOME creativity...

I absolutely agree with Professor Jacomo response.

One of the highlights of creativity is research.