As a physician, I am often asked by friends and family my opinion about health matters — even those unrelated to my specialty of psychiatry. Given that all doctors have the same basic experiences in medical school, and some residencies carry similarities to others, I am not clueless when it comes to other fields (though I may not be current and certainly don’t always have the same depth as a regular practitioner). Ultimately, I don’t mind these requests. I am able to read the articles that family and friends are asking about and interpret them, and I find much of the new information interesting.
In a similar vein, colleagues often suggest I read a particular article in our field. I am actually grateful, as I view this as an opportunity to increase my knowledge and skills, and to resist the narrowing mindset of “expertise.” I am also often asked, however, by friends, colleagues, and even patients to read a fiction or nonfiction book they find enjoyable or thought-provoking. Having my own long list of articles and books to read, this is usually a distraction, if not an annoyance. While I am grateful to learn of important articles in my field, and I am happy to interpret medical information for others, particularly non-professionals, I often feel like I need to jealously guard the rest of my time and follow my own reading preferences.
Like many clinicians, I have limited time available for leisure. It feels risky to surrender even some of the precious time I have available for pleasure to the direction of others. When I was in medical school and internship, I would often have only three hours or so of free time every three or four days. As a result, I was reluctant to waste it. I “couldn’t” watch a movie — that would use two of my three hours! I also didn’t want to waste any minutes on travel time. If I socialized, I feared losing control of the precious hours altogether and frittering them away. Fortunately, I soon realized that, due to my reluctance, I was actually wasting the whole three hours, frozen by indecision.
I recently considered whether this persistent desire to follow my own muse was once again not serving me well. It often feels safer to remain in one’s own silo, eschewing guidance and advice from others who may not share our own viewpoint, values, or tastes. When I consider how reading medical articles in and outside my specialty supports my progression as a clinician, though, I also have to wonder if the same eclecticism wouldn’t benefit me not only as a person, a citizen, and a member of society, but also as a physician. As my old supervisor, Robert McCully, once told me, “You can’t take people farther than you’ve been yourself.”
The philosopher and literary critic Mikhail M. Bakhtin has described heteroglossic writing, in which multiple voices and meanings can be included in a single text. In psychiatry, patients are more likely to offer critical information vaguely versus explicitly. Reading in a heteroglossic style and becoming familiar with the thoughts and experiences of many others enables us to better detect hidden references in our patient interactions. This is in contrast to monoglossia, in which only a single, dominant, authoritative voice is heard, i.e., a silo. This is relevant to our communication with other people in general, but especially to communication with our patients. The more we maintain a broad view and a deeper understanding of the world, the more we’ll be able to comprehend our patients’ perspectives — which means our assessments and recommendations will be more accurate, and we’ll encounter more adherence to our treatment plans.
While it may feel more comfortable, staying in our own narrow intellectual lane, with little “cross-pollination,” ultimately diminishes our knowledge, outlook, creativity, and compassion. Heeding something as simple as others’ reading suggestions is only one example of being open to other people’s worlds, which enriches not only our own but our whole society.
And though reading increases cortical connectivity and is an ideal route to openness, one can also get exposure to other people’s worlds via more social formats. For example, I often attend presentations at the nearby university that have nothing to do with medicine or psychiatry. Listening to lectures and the resulting audience discussion on topics like physics, political science, and history not only teaches me something interesting, it also brings me into contact with a diverse assortment of perspectives and worldviews. Such opportunities almost always generate new associations, ideas, and ways to link the various concepts I have been struggling to write about and teach. I have even started carrying a notebook to jot down new ideas I will use in my work, rather than hoping to remember or rediscover them later.
I have learned that I do not have to know in advance the benefits I will get from an endeavor that varies from my usual path. I now know that I will develop those insights along the way. I will likely discover new ways of problem-solving and analogies that better express my ideas. The result is not only an increase in my own creativity, but greater connection to many others, including patients and colleagues.
What have you learned from reading outside of your specialty? Share in the comments!
