farmdoc's blog post number 60

Admirably, Australia's general practitioners want specialists to better understand and appreciate general practice. So each month the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners sends me its journal, Australian Family Physician. I wrote in my 14 May 2008 blog post that these days I only read journal articles relating to my work, or otherwise interesting me. The June issue of AFP includes an item titled ‘This sylvan game: Creative writing and GP wellbeing’. I don’t get the sylvan bit, because my dictionary defines sylvan as pertaining to a wood or forest. Here it implies something else, though. Magic, perhaps. Anyway, obviously the AFP article’s topic is creative writing by doctors. It discusses the importance of getting something off your chest by writing it down, and the relationship between reflective writing (which concentrates on self exploration) and wellbeing. Yes indeed. Since 21 April 2008 when I began farmdoc’s blog, writing has been my bag. It is a new, and unexpectedly wonderful, dimension in my life. It is cathartic. It has improved my wellbeing. I find writing a daily post joyous. I look forward to doing it. I don’t care if no-one else reads what I write, because for me it’s the writing that counts. And as a mysterious bonus, writing farmdoc’s blog has improved the quality of the writing in my medical reports. That’s real magic.