Hatchery - Beth Osmond

And I think, well, there's two things I want to pick up on.

I'm now going to have a massive squeal and go, oh my goodness, you knew Helen Dunmore because I absolutely... absolutely love her work and love her poems but I particularly have absolutely adored so many of her novels she is just such an amazing amazing writer

as well yeah I read lots of her books actually when they were you know in draft form like she especially when I was a teenager some of the ones that were okay for teenagers to read I actually would you know she'd let me read them before but yeah I'd never really read her poetry till after she died

I think the other thing is that really interesting thing, and I suppose, you know, I'm quite excited around sort of thinking about creativity and our creativity as people.

And I've got really interested over the last few months in this idea of what is now being referred to as creative health.

I'm actually doing a fellowship in creative health at the moment, which is quite exciting.

And I think something that comes up again and again and again, particularly with doctors is, is how we've often been creative because I think fundamentally all people are innately creative.

But there is a real sense of that being removed from us.

And I don't know whether that is by the system or whether that is because so many of us have been reasonably high achievers before.

in an academic sense, that actually we've sort of felt that we've either taken the joy out of any creative activity, because actually if it's not, you know, grade eight or winning an exhibition or something, it's not worth doing.

Or actually we've been told, well, that's not, you're not really very good at that.

And, you know, you're going to get an A in chemistry.

Go and do chemistry.

Because, you know, if you do art, you might get a C and that would just be the end of the world.

And of course, actually that whole thing about playing and using our creative brain is so important and you know for so many physical and emotional reasons and i i find it really really fascinating that actually, you know, children all play all of the time.

And some adults do and lots of adults don't.

But actually, by and large, most medics sort of seem a little bit embarrassed or ashamed to have creative hobbies that they adore and aren't necessarily very good at.

Now, I'm not saying, you know, your writing, you're clearly incredibly good at as well.

But I think about doing things for the purposes of enjoyment rather than necessarily for achievement.

And I think we are... culturally and sort of taught not to do

yeah i mean i totally agree with you um i think um well adam k talks about this sort of thing in the in his but this is gonna hurt and i remember him talking about you know in order to get into medical school he had to have grade eight piano which is like completely bonkers isn't it because you know really of what use is that but it Definitely, you know, I started medical school in the 90s.

It was definitely expected that you would have, you know, multiple extracurricular activities, either sport or, you know, music or something else that you could demonstrate you were a well-rounded individual.

So they wanted you to have that application.

Then the second we started medical school, they were like, oh, there's no time for any of that.

Right.