- 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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Stress blog
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July 3, 2008
The camel and the straw
By Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
Once upon a time in a land far, far away, a merchant needed a camel to transport straw to another city. Since each piece of straw weighed no more than a feather, the merchant did not anticipate the rest of the story. As each piece of straw was put on the camel's back, the camel never complained. The camel said to his master, "I can handle this. I have lots of energy. I am strong, and after all, it is my responsibility to carry the straw."
Well, we all know what happened. The camel never complained, it did what camels are suppose to do, and the addition of one final blade of straw buckled the knees of the camel, broke its back, and he slumped to the desert floor. This is a famous story which fits into many of the themes on our stress blog. Some of the themes which I derive from the story are as follows.
- The camel, like many of us, never learns to say "no." He did what he was supposed to do as do many of us and it took its toll on his health and well-being.
- The camel, like many of us, did not know its limits. We only have so much strength, we only have so much time, and we only have so much energy. If we continue to say "yes" to everything, we are set up for the same fate as the camel.
- The camel did not strike a compromise with his master. There were no discussions of limits; there were no discussions of dividing up the burden to use other camels; there was no attempt to negotiate with the master a better way to deliver the product or to complete the task.
So, what other lessons do you find in the power walk of the camel? In a sense, each of us is a camel with responsibilities and tasks and very clear limits. What have some of us learned so that we do not go down the same road as our camel brethren?
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