- 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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Oct. 30, 2009
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Oct. 24, 2009
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Stress blog
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Oct. 24, 2008
Everyone has limits
By Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
The energy of our community springs from each of you. We at MayoClinic.com gain insight and humility from the comments of so many of you.
I naively thought that once we have meaning and purpose in our lives, all will be well and we will achieve peace and serenity. However, many of you have appropriately pointed out that if we give and we give of ourselves without self care, there is nothing left and our health both psychological and physical can deteriorate.
Let me elaborate. Several years ago, my wife and I first participated in a medical program in Central America. The staff was primarily church-based individuals from America. These wonderful people gave up the comforts of middle class professionalism to live in some very difficult circumstances. I heard many stories of emotional exhaustion and physical deterioration by the missionaries.
The church leadership fully acknowledged that it was not aware of the stresses and the responsibilities of working in a third world country, and the workers were never really taught the importance of introspection, time away, and taking care of themselves. It reminds me of His Holiness the Dalia Lama being hospitalized for exhaustion.
So, I think the lesson for each of us that in a way we are all missionaries, we are all ambassadors, but we need to acknowledge that yes, we are human; yes, there are limits on our endurance, and if we do not take care of ourselves nothing is left.
Again, thank you for your comments and please let me know if these few words make sense, and equally importantly, how you and I can incorporate these notions into our daily lives.
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