EP 105: Designing for Creativity in Medicine | Vidya Viswanathan
What role does creativity play in the field of medicine?
Vidya Viswanathan is a writer and primary care pediatrician in Philadelphia. She founded Doctors Who Create, a community focused on medicine and creativity, and led the Creativity in Medicine conference in Philadelphia in 2019. She has published longform journalism and narrative nonfiction in outlets including The Atlantic, Vox, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and JAMA. Vidya trained at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for pediatrics residency. She attended undergrad at Harvard College where she majored in Social Studies and studied Mandarin Chinese, and spent the year afterward on a Fulbright scholarship teaching English in Taiwan. She did her post-bac studies after her return, and moved to Philadelphia for medical school–and hasn’t left since. Currently, Vidya is dabbling in fiction writing and working on a novel about women of color in medical training. She lives in Philly with her husband and their twin toddlers, and reads several (children’s) books a day.
Episode mentions and links:
Sara Nović - Author and Educator
“The House of God,” a Book as Sexist as It Was Influential, Gets a Sequel - New Yorker
Suzanne Koven - Letters to a Young Female Physician
Restaurant Vidya would take you to: L’anima
Episode Reflection
This week we got to hear from a physician who has found her pathway to connecting with her humanity by embracing her own creativity in the act of writing. Vidya shared her story of how very early in her medical training, she saw a real need for people working in healthcare to find ways to express their creativity in the same way she had. In founding Doctors Who Create, she quickly discovered a latent community of creatives hidden within the halls of our traditionally scientific hospitals and universities who jumped at the opportunity to convene and share in the incredible power of the arts. I must say, hearing Vidya describe her own wishes to find ways to bring the arts into her work really struck a nerve with me. From the early days of my own training, I always had this little voice in my head encouraging me to stimulate my creative side. As I tried to memorize pathophysiologic pathways, I could feel my right brain antagonistically poking at my left brain, trying to get me to sit behind my drum kit, paint a mural on the door to my apartment, or join an acapella group. And more often than not, my right brain would win! It seems that for those of us who find ourselves in highly pragmatic and science-driven professions, our need to stoke our creativity becomes even greater. I’m no longer surprised when I learn about colleagues who seemingly lead double lives as an (insert extremely difficult medical profession) and a (insert insanely creative “hobby” or passion). Think neurosurgeon by day, rock and roll guitarist by night. On the contrary, the only thing that still surprises me is that we haven’t done a better job at incorporating arts and humanities into healthcare in a more universal way. Discovering “warriors for creativity” like Vidya, gives me hope however that there is room for both of these worlds in healthcare and I look forward to the day when we all can find a way to keep both sides of our brain stimulated and happy.
Written by Rob Pugliese
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Bon Ku: On today's episode, we are going to explore the role that creativity plays in the field of medicine. I'm Bon Ku, the host of Design Lab. A podcast that explores the intersection of design and health.
Today's guest is Dr. Vidya Viswanathan, she is a writer, primary care pediatrician right here in Philadelphia. She founded Doctors Who Create a community focused on medicine and creativity.
Vidya has published a long form journalism and narrative nonfiction in outlets including the Atlantic, Vox, the Philadelphia Inquirer and JAMA.
She trained at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for pediatrics residency. She went to undergrad at Harvard college, there she majored in Social Studies and studied Mandarin Chinese and afterwards spent a year teaching English in Taiwan on a Fulbright Scholarship. Currently she is dabbling in fiction writing, working on a novel about women of color in medical training. She lives in Philly with her husband and their twin toddlers and read several children's books a day.
My producer, Rob Pugliese wants you to visit our website Designlabpod.com. There, you can find your show notes from each week, learn about our guests and get links to related content from each episode. And while you're there, subscribe to our newsletter, if you don't already, because each week he will send you the show notes and links for the podcast right in your email inbox whenever a new episode drops.
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Go to Apple Podcasts, give us five stars. Leave us a review. We currently have a five star rating. Thank you for everyone who supports us. Thank you for telling others about the podcast. This is the way that you support our show, keep our stoke going, and help us to do this every week. Now here's my conversation with Vidya
Vidya welcome to Design Lab. I've been following your work for years and it's so good to have you on Design Lab.
Vidya Viswanathan: Thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm really excited to talk.
Bon Ku: So we're both in Philadelphia. You are a pediatrician doing primary care, and you are also working on a novel. I read
Vidya Viswanathan: Yes, that's
Bon Ku: true. Tell us about that.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah. So, it's funny because most of my writing before now was non-fiction. So, I kind of started, my writing more in the like, journalism space. I like to do a lot of long form journalism and even as a pre-med, I was in my spare time kind of calling people to interview them about different things that I found interesting in doing a lot of journalism.
And then in residency I just started to feel like there's so much I wanted to say that couldn't fit in just like an article. It was almost like these overarching themes that, it's not that I wanted to write a news article or a feature article about them, but I, I wanted to find some medium to convey those, those feelings and those themes.
And so I started writing fiction because I took a course in Philadelphia actually. It's called the Blue Stoop Writer's Group, and they have all these courses on different types of writing, but one of them was a fiction course that I took with Sarah Novic who's a, a novelist.
She actually just came out with a novel called True Biz. That's, that's a really great novel. And so I. Taking that course and I was like, wow, this is the first time I feel like I could convey all of these like emotions and experiences of residency. So I didn't think I was gonna write a novel, and then I just felt like I kept returning to the character.
I kind of made, made up for that class. And she was a Indian American physician in training. So not, not autobiographical, but near and dear to my heart,
Bon Ku: but, but you are. You are Indian American
Vidya Viswanathan: yes, exactly. I'm an Indian American female physician who was recently in training. But I, I just felt like through the character, I could tell a lot of stories from the hospital and from medicine that weren't being told.
And so now I kind of morphed that into a few characters who are all women of color in training in a children's hospital who are kind of. Going through similar experiences and working out what kind of doctor they wanna be. And so the novel follows them separately, but then they, they end up working together.
As part of a team caring for a patient with a diagnostic dilemma. And they also end up being recruited for a diversity committee. And it's sort of like, about how, how do you navigate both medical complexity and also just institutional complexity with with regards to diversity, which I think is a big topic right now
Bon Ku: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I have so many follow up questions, so, let's start off with um, there's this whole genre of physicians who write, and I'm curious to know why you think that is, and also how do you carve out the time to write practicing as a physician and you're a relatively new mom with twins.
You had twins during the pandemic. Like how do you make time for that?
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah, it's very hard. So, I think one of the reasons I actually was drawn to a medical career as someone who, who wasn't pre-med in undergrad,
was I started to read, no, I wasn't, I did a post back. Yeah. So I, I had studied social studies and Mandarin Chinese in undergrad, and my thesis in social studies was on nationalism in China and Taiwan. And then I had like comparing nationalism in China and Taiwan. And then I lived in Taiwan for a year teaching English afterwards. And when I came back is when I started to be interested in medicine and actually did a post back. But one of like my, reasons for being interested in medicine was reading medical writers or reading literature and non-fiction from people in medicine. And I think a lot of people have read Atul Gawande's writings.
that was kind of the first introduction I had because I think he's everywhere and he really explains things in a way that's easy for people to understand and is very story based. And once, but once I started to read his writing and then I was like actively searching out more writers.
Vidya Viswanathan: Then I, you know, came across the Twitter community of creative people in medicine and it just felt like everyone had their own unique story to tell. and I love to write, and I had so many things I wanted to write about, and I, I started to feel like I, I feel like I will have stories to tell as well.
And in medicine if, you know, if they can balance being both a, a good doctor and a good writer, like maybe I can too. So I think that really gave me hope that there was room for me as a creative person in medicine. I do think though, that there are a lot of people I met and that people will meet in training or in application processes who are like, why are you doing both medicine and writing?
there's still a mentality of just pick a path or just pick one person. You have to be.
Bon Ku: You have to specialize
Vidya Viswanathan: exactly. You have to specialize, you have to do your one thing. and then I think because there's already so much literature out there from doctor writers, I knew that wasn't true.
and so that was helpful for me,
Bon Ku: but I can't think of a book written by a female Indian American doctor.
Vidya Viswanathan: Well, that's the thing that a lot of the more popular books are not. But now I think, I think Twitter helps a, like I have found more books that are written by women of color in medicine, but I've, I've noticed that they're not the ones that are like the most popular on the bestseller list. And then going further into like novels.
I think one of the things I realized was like, I've read a lot of novels, but mostly they don't deal with medicine. And if you ask people to recommend a novel that touches on medical things, a lot of people will still recommend House of God by Samuel Shem, but, that is not current and also you know, kind of revolves a lot around culture of misogyny in medicine.
And so, while they're, like, a lot of people say that novel has so many elements of truth, but I think telling the story of really like people who are often marginalized in medicine is still is something I'm more passionate about. And so there's always gonna be a different perspective.
And so Yeah, I don't see that perspective enough and that's part of why I wanted to, to write. And I, for as far as time though, that's like a constant struggle. So, I mean, I'm, curious what you think about how to make time to do your creative work and and practice medicine.
For me, it's a very much a, an ebb and flow. So I'll have long periods of time where I'm not even writing a single sentence whether it's for my novel or something else. But then it's almost like it, the thoughts in my head about a particular topic or something. I, you know, I wanna get down on paper, just build, and then I have to carve out a time, whether it's you, even if it's just like an hour where I say I'm gonna write for this hour.
And people say, well, you're really busy, you have kids. I actually think having kids, put the kind of like press the gas on my writing where I'm like, oh, I have so little time and I still wanna do this. That means it's really important to me and I'm gonna be way more intentional about about writing.
And I never thought that that would be the case, but , it's very true. So if they go down for a nap and I said I wanted to write that day, I am using that hour to write or I tell my husband, I'm gonna go to this cafe for this hour or two hours in the morning while you watch them and then we'll switch off.
he's very supportive of my writing, but I also have to think my writing is important enough for me to be able to do that. And that I think is a big step. While before it was just sort of like I'm randomly writing here and there, and now I'm like, Oh, I have this goal and I really want to carve out the time to do it.
Vidya Viswanathan: I'm not one of those people who writes in between seeing patients on my iPhone. And I always hear these stories
Bon Ku: I know. I'm like, how do they do that?
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah. I don't get it. I, I was like, I could never put myself in the Headspace to during a clinic date, write fiction or write you know, even non-fiction.
I need like that separate. And physical location matters. for me it's like a coffee shop, not clinic. Nowhere that practices medicine is a place that I could, I could write
Bon Ku: I, I think what you said about being intentional is something I've had to train myself to do on like creative projects, so be very intentional about it. So for me, I carve out time in the early mornings and even on weekends, I try to get up early before my family gets up and, and carve out a couple hours to, to work on something and I have become a lot better at.
This, and this sounds like bad, but like avoiding meetings and not being able to be so accessible all the time. Because I was doing that and I would take a lot of meetings, take a lot of phone calls and zooms, but then I was exhausted and then I would not have time to work on projects that needed.
One two hours a day to work on. And I, cuz I cannot work on it, I can't just work on it for 15 minutes. I need to carve out a chunk of time. And so I'm very protective of like my morning times when I get to work on some of these projects and I try not to put meetings in those slots.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah. it's so true. saying yes to everything then does kind of limit your own creative time. . And one thing I've been thinking about is how a lot of people assume writing just flows or, you know, whatever creative pursuit you have that it just happens. But actually, you know, you could spend an hour and, and write 2000 words or an hour and, and write like a hundred words.
so it's not really like you can predict, for me at least, I can't
Bon Ku: No. Yeah, you never know. We never know. When you have one of those creative, efficient times, it may be like, it may be like 200 words. It may be like 2000, but you can't predict it. You just have to, but you have to create that platform for yourself to allow that to happen.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah. And I have a writer's group, so,
Bon Ku: Oh,
Vidya Viswanathan: so actually a lot, a lot stems from that Blue Soup course because I, I think I was very stubborn about I need to preserve my writing identity. And so I was actually an intern. I was pregnant with twins, and it was February, 2020 when I took that course, like right before the pandemic and I, I took the course, my joke is like, Satya and Lekha, my twins are really the ones who inspired me to turn to fiction because I took the course thinking I'm about to have twins.
I'm in residency. I'm never gonna have time to take a course like this again, and write fiction. So let me take this course. And I took it in the evenings during a more. traditional like outpatient month where my schedule is more traditional like nine to five. And so I was able to make the classes and then the pandemic hit and they moved to Zoom.
And after it ended, one of the people in the course like one of my writer now writer friends, she said, I have this writer's group. Do you wanna join? we have a spot. And I have just, at that point I had just given birth to Satya and Lekha, so I was like, I'm really busy right now. And then a year later I reached back out to her.
I said, do you still have that spot? And she did. And so now I'm in this writer's group of just people who, some of them are, you know, more full-time working on their friction writing and others have other jobs and are working on writing on the side. They're all in Philly, but we often move down Zoom. once a month, and that has been a great community for me where I have a reason to like a scheduled reason to think about writing and think about other people's writing every month.
And then also get feedback on my own writing and just have people who validate the process of being really difficult and but also rewarding
Bon Ku: Are they a little, a little surprised when they find out you're a practicing pediatrician?
Vidya Viswanathan: Well now they're used to like all of my, cuz every single one of my pieces is almost every single one is about medicine. In some way. and they've like seen, seen the different characters so they're not surprised, but I do think they think it's so funny. Like a lot of them will be like, I never thought about the, the hospital this way, or the clinic this way.
And it's just I think it's a different perspective, but I love hearing, you know, with their characters sometimes when their characters are going through something medical. It's really interesting seeing other people write about things like mental illness from a non-physician trained perspective.
And it's, yeah, it's really powerful to be able to have a writer's community. And I, I didn't have that before and so that's been really great.
Bon Ku: Now, we first met years ago when you started an organization called Doctors Who Create,
Vidya Viswanathan: Mm-hmm.
Bon Ku: I love the organization. And you had a conference back in 2019. That was so cool. Can you tell us about the organization and why you had started it?
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah. Yeah. So I started. Right before I started med school, actually, so that was in 2015 and I had started it because I felt like there wasn't enough check boxes you had to check off to get into med school.
And they were very formulaic, you know, like research and shadowing and and all these things. And even the research that you were encouraged to do would be like whatever can get you to publication, not something you're actually very interested in. Or like that you're passionate about. And then when I was in med school, same thing.
Like it felt like there was, you're encouraged to do these things, to get you into residency and there's all this emphasis on following a specific path. But as I had said, you know, to you before, like I was inspired by people who weren't on the. Specific path. And I kept meeting people like you and, and other physicians who are very creative.
And I think the key thing that that inspired me to start it was I felt like I kept hearing from people like, oh, I do this creative pursuit, but you know, my colleagues don't really know about it. Or it's not really something like the hospital like knows about. And I felt well, everyone's kind of having their experience in isolation.
It would be nice to. To have a platform where people could share what they're doing and then maybe even create a community around this where people can find each other. So, so that's how I started it.
Bon Ku: it really struck a nerve, I
think, with a lot of medical students and physicians because it, it resonated with, it resonated with me. I was like, oh, this is amazing. And I was thinking, why wasn't? This started before, and I
Vidya Viswanathan: you.
Bon Ku: this hunger for people to go, Hey, I'm creative.
I think there's a role for creativity
in my work or in my life, and I want to talk about it. I want to share about it and meet other people who have similar experiences.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah, yeah. And especially because Healthcare can really make it. Healthcare in America at least, can really make you feel like a cog in the system and in a system that's broken. So the first step in changing a system is even allowing yourself to think of your own identity as someone who can change a system or someone who can create change.
And I think that's the basis of creativity is creation, right? So you have to think of yourself as someone who can do that. And I think one of the contributors to burnout in residency and in physicians in general, I feel is lack of agency feeling like you can't create change.
I would get emails from people who said I'm feeling so stuck, but reading your website, Is giving me a lot of hope that I can do whatever change it is I want to do, whether it's through writing or art. You know, and, people feel like their creative identity is actually essential to their identity.
And I, think, it was nice to be able to highlight that. So I had a section that was like profiles and creativity where we would interview people like you who are doing something creative. And then I also just had a blog section where people will, would write about different topics.
And then, so that, that's how it started. And then I had in med school at Penn, I had this grant over my first summer, like between first and second year of med school to be able to work on it over the summer to build a team of people who could, who could work on the website. And so that grant was really helpful because it helped me really focus time on it and then build a staff.
and it was all volunteers, but like people who were really passionate about contributing to the website
and
Bon Ku: passionate. I met many
Vidya Viswanathan: passionate ,you met them. Yeah,
Bon Ku: Like how do you have time to do this? And they just they're great.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah. And yeah, and I, it felt good because it felt like people really cared about it. And it wasn't like you know, I was like, if, someone can't do something, I was like, please tell me if you're too busy.
And, but you know, and everyone's busy cuz med school residency attending like every step of the way. You have different demands on your time, but people found time to contribute. And when I shared the idea of the conference, which I really felt like I love doing all this stuff for doctors who create online, but we've never brought together people in person.
So when I shared that idea, they were very much on board. And so we had this conference planning committee. And we planned the conference for April, 2019, and I think that was probably the most gratifying part of everything was to see one, the level of interest people had for a conference on creativity in medicine.
And I, I got like emails from people in California and Arizona when we like sold out. They were like, I need a ticket. I need to fly, I need to fly to Philadelphia for this conference. I was, do people come to Philadelphia? like I thought that we like, but being in Philadelphia would somehow you know, it's not New York.
So I'm like, well, you'll, filter out some people. But it's like everyone was like, I need
Bon Ku: to get to Philadelphia
was. It was like trying to get Taylor Swift tickets. Everyone wanted one,
but there was like incredible people. I met Ben Schwartz, who's a cartoonist
Vidya Viswanathan: yeah.
Bon Ku: for the New Yorker, and he's also a physician at Columbia. I'm like, what? You're a New Yorker staff cartoonist
and Emily Silverman, who we had on the podcast, and she runs the
Vidya Viswanathan: incredible.
Bon Ku: was like, there are so many cool people came from all over.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah, I know, I think what was cool is I had spent at that point, 4 years interviewing people and my staff had been interviewing people who are creative people in medicine. So you know, a lot of the speakers that we emailed to invite. Many of whom didn't live in Philadelphia.
They had been on our website as part of a profile. So, you know, we had already connected with them. It wasn't like we were reaching out for the first time for the conference. And so it was great because they, many of them immediately were like, oh yes. I'll come, I'm happy to be involved, to present, to be on this panel.
And it just felt almost like, an established community was getting together for the first time. Like it didn't feel we had to do a lot of work to get speakers and so that was great cuz then I got to meet people who I had just emailed with in the past or spoken on the phone with in person for the first time.
Bon Ku: There were some amazing people there.
Vidya Viswanathan: I thought it was great that I got to see people in person who I had only spoken with on the phone or you know, interviewed on the phone. And then I kept seeing people who had met on Twitter, meeting each other in real life and then tweeting about it.
And it was just like a fun and very inspiring experience to be part of that conference and like to feel like, oh, like the community I wanted to create is here and is really enjoying it. And it was very rewarding.
Bon Ku: There was such a diversity in creativity. I, there was a I forget if there's like a, I think a woman who painted and I saw her paintings were like incredible. I think she was a penned student at
Vidya Viswanathan: yeah, yeah, yeah. Liz Card. Yeah, yeah,
Bon Ku: And there was some neurosurgeon from New York who also I think painted.
Vidya Viswanathan: She paints. Yeah.
Yeah,
Bon Ku: was like, what?
You're like a practicing neuro. And her paintings were incredible and I felt like such a loser. I'm like, yo, who are all these people with so many talents? But, I think one observation I had was they were just like so excited to share this. And I think there wasn't a platform before.
to share it. Right? We can't go to our academic medical conferences and be like, yo, here's my random research on, I did a randomized control trial on this, and here's this painting I did
Vidya Viswanathan: yeah. .Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And that, part of the problem, I think There's not enough value placed on art and creativity, and I think that's changing, but still,it's really hard for people who feel like that's where their skillset lies to, to find their place. And the, conference was great because, I know that my interests always skewed towards writing and, you know, the written form as a form of creativity.
And so I made a very intentional decision to create sub communities in our conference planning to make sure that Hey, this person, you know, we had a pre-med actually who's very interested in art. And I said, you're in charge of the art show cuz I know nothing about that, but I want it to be represented.
And so that, was great because I felt you know, even all of us planning it got to use our creative expertise. And then it brought together people from very different stages of their training, very different types of creativity. we changed it from doctors who create to creativity in medicine so that we could recruit non-physicians as well.
And I think it that really helped too, because then we got a even more of a diversity in perspective. Yeah.
Bon Ku: Now, do you feel that creativity is just as it serves more as an outlet for physicians? Or can creativity actually make you a better physician?
Vidya Viswanathan: So that's such an interesting question because I think people, I almost feel like people are very divided on it.
Like some people are like, okay, well, you can work part-time as a physician and then do your creative things on the side, and like those identities don't need to intersect.
Vidya Viswanathan: But I feel like it kind of depends on how you think about it, but like for me, one of the reasons I'm, I feel like I practice medicine is my interest in stories. And I think part of what makes me a good doctor is a lot of what makes me a good writer. So I think that interest in stories, curiosity about people and interest in listening to people is part of what makes me a good writer. And then in writing I've noticed that when I write, I discover a lot of things that like, like I kind of discover my own thoughts. So for me a lot of people say, so what are you writing about? And I actually don't discover what I'm writing about until I've already written the piece.
So it's, and everyone's different. Some people like outline what they write and then they write it. But for me it's always discovery. And I feel the same way when I walk into a patient's room. So in primary care, a lot of times you'll have a visit, a sick visit where a patient is coming in for a specific problem.
They've described that problem over the phone to one of the nurses on the triage line, and you see that little note. and you walk in and then you, and you see this, I'm sure in the ER too. And then you discover something completely different and that happens all the time. It's very humbling. But it is also what makes the career very interesting is that through listening and through remaining open to possibility, you become a better doctor.
And it's the same thing with writing. For me. And then, you know, in terms of the actual career, I now see that hospital systems, medical schools are more and more interested in humanities curricula and in kind of solving this issue of, why are doctors often criticize for not being empathetic or not being good listeners?
And so I think there is space for creative people to merge their passion with, that need that's now being shown to have more training on listening or have have more Interest or exposure to the humanities? I think that it's like a personal choice and for me, like right now, I am separately writing and separately practicing medicine.
I think if the opportunity arose though to, to involve my humanities interest in like my career that would be great. and I think there's just more hospitals and more med schools are starting to go in that direction. I know I interviewed Suzanne Koven who's a, writer who
Bon Ku: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Vidya Viswanathan: Letter to a Young Female Physician, is her book, which is really great.
And she's the writer in residence at MGH. Which is that was one of those positions that when I saw that that existed, I was like, oh, we are moving in this direction of encouraging creativity in medicine, but
it's not every hospital.
Mass
Bon Ku: General Hospital one. One of kind of the best hospitals in in the us. Yeah.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah, . Yeah. Sorry, I ran, I'm
Bon Ku: No, I What? And I love that. You know, at the core of medicine are these stories that we get to hear every day that we see patients, patients are telling a story of, of their illness and of their healing, and, and how we can understand the stories and communicate them. I think. Definitely something that involves creativity, right?
A lot of these stories then become so sanitized in the E H R, the electronic health record, and don't reveal the human who's experiencing that illness, either acute or chronic. And I think because of the lack of creativity, maybe the lack of of a human-centered approach is why our experience as patients as caregivers, physicians feel so dehumanized.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. and I like, I want to work in a system where someone could have an idea, let's say, to improve patient satisfaction, improve physician workflow, and that idea would not take five years to implement. Like that's, that's the goal. And that's what is great about what you're doing with like healthcare design and design thinking.
And that's part of burnout, I think is the frustration with inability to change things.
Bon Ku: Yeah. Oh, that, that totally resonate with me, that that was the pathophysiology of my burnout
Vidya Viswanathan: yeah.
Bon Ku: I am a cog in a system with an inability to change the system cuz it leaves you without hope.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah. Yeah. And I think with patients too it's been, you know, in pediatrics it's been really great to connect with patients on something other than the medical side of things. And, you know, being human like we are, we're always seeking sources of connection. But I think particularly with pediatric patients, you know, talking with them about what their interests are.
So I always ask them like, what, you know, what's your favorite subject in school? What TV show are you watching? Because it's nice for them to be seen as someone other than a patient, and also to see me as someone who has interests and is interested in their lives and. Is, you know, is is someone who's willing to talk to them about something other than just medicine and even just one minute spent not in my, you know, doctor mode charting mode, just one minute spent off the cuff.
Talking can go a long way with the patient relationship. And, and the other thing is like a lot of what I learn actually about that, that's helpful in med in my interactions with patients can be from books or movies. You know, like there, the whole point of a lot of literature and a lot of television or movies is to show a perspective that you may not have otherwise known.
And so, a lot of what I've learned about like different perspectives can come from that and can help inform how I treat patients.
Bon Ku: Yeah, I love all that and I could talk to you forever, but I think you have some work to do ed, but I wanna and can I ask you a couple more questions?
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah. Yeah, of
Bon Ku: Um, I'm curious to know from your perspective as a physician, as a, as a writer , do you have some thoughts on how we can design a healthier life, either personally or systemically.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah, that's, that's a great question. I'm working on answering that for myself more. I think that, so personally I have worked a lot on just as we've sort of talked about being intentional about what I'm doing. So trying to kind of prioritize in my mind what's more important to me and, and actively spend time on that.
So, for me, spending time with my kids, especially as a full-time working mom is very important. And so, Carving out time where when I'm with them I'm very present, but then when I'm not with them you know, working on things like my writing trying to incorporate exercise every day for me is really important and, and spending time with my husband and my friends.
I think in terms of Design. I've been really struck by how much happens outside the hospital and outside the clinic in terms of impacting my health and my patient's health. So like for me, I, I love biking to work. I do drive sometimes in the winter months or when it's raining, but otherwise, like my preference is to bike to work.
And there is an interesting backstory there where I actually didn't know how to ride a bike, until I went to Taiwan as like 21 year
Bon Ku: Uhhuh
Vidya Viswanathan: And I had to learn there because I, I was living in a more like not in Taipei, but in Elon, which is a city within a more rural area. And if I didn't bike and I didn't scooter, then some of the days I would've had to walk a pretty long distance.
So I ended up learning how to bike ride there. And then ever since then I've been a bike commuter. That's my preferred mode of getting places .
Bon Ku: that's so cool.
Vidya Viswanathan: Which is amazing. like that's, that was like one of the takeaways I had from my time there. When I bike here, it makes such a difference when there's a protected bike lane.
It makes such a difference when other people on the road are aware of bikers and my husband actually works in public transportation consulting, so we like talk about a lot about biking and the bus system and because of him, I think I'd also take the bus more, like a lot of times where I think.
Friends are Ubering, or taking a Lyft, I noticed hey, there's a bus that takes you directly where you wanna go. But you have to have that awareness of how to look up the buses, and like know when they're coming
so
Bon Ku: am, I am impressed because Philadelphia is not known for great bike lanes or a great mass transit
Vidya Viswanathan: Exactly.
Bon Ku: I'm being a little bit tongue in cheek there.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah, exactly. Which is why I'm like, it would make such a difference if those systems could be even more invested in or you know, hospitals are trying to do more like And like public transit commuting incentives. But if you don't have a, good bike parking or a protected bike lane leading up to the hospital, then you can't really encourage those things.
So I think that's, that's a big one for me is for patients and for myself, like incorporating exercise and health habits in your daily life. But I also think for patients, there's just so much, so much kind of stacked against a lot of our patients in terms of access to healthy food access to, things like exercise and even just medical knowledge.
it's so tough, especially in a pandemic when hospital systems and clinics are overwhelmed for patients to even get appointments. Some of the specialist referrals I make. The appointment will be like, at minimum, like six months later. So as a primary care pediatrician, how am I gonna help that patient right now?
Vidya Viswanathan: So yeah, there's, there's just so much to work on. I think that is not in a patient's control. And that's where like I think we need a lot of change in our systems.
Bon Ku: If one of our listeners were to visit you in Philadelphia, where would you take them to eat?
Vidya Viswanathan: Good. Good question. So I love walking with places too, in addition to biking, so that we do have a place that's, it's an Italian restaurant, that's just about four or five blocks from my house. It's called L'anima
Bon Ku: oh, I haven't been there.
Vidya Viswanathan: it's, well, this is why I like it, so a lot of people don't seem to know about it, so it's easy to get a reservation there.
And they have great outdoor dining spot. They have like really pretty lights. They have the heaters when it's cold out and, I just have a really just special bond with it, cuz that's where my husband and I went when I had had the 20 week ultrasound for my twins and as a pediatrician having twins, I was in a ball of anxiety.
So after that ultrasound went well and we went there, I think I've just like always connected the restaurant with just like positive feelings.
Bon Ku: Positive vibes. Yeah.
Vidya Viswanathan: Positive vibes. And then their food is great and they're very kid friendly. There's always parents dining there with their kids, but it's like a fancy Italian restaurant.
So it's just like a great spot. And I would love to take anyone visiting me there because it's just really good food and like always makes me just feel happy. And it's BYO like many places in Philadelphia so you can bring your own wine.
Bon Ku: Well, I, I love it. If you're hungry, I'm gonna put a link into the show notes so you could, you could check it out there. And I also wanna make a plug for you, have a newsletter so you can get little snippets of your writing that you send to people, sign up. So we'll put the link for your newsletter or your substack rather in the show notes as well.
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah. Thank you. And if anyone, wants to connect with me about writing and medicine if they sign up for the newsletter, they could always like email me through that. I'm happy to help anyone who has questions or wants to bond over the pursuit of being a doctor writer.
Bon Ku: I'm gonna contact you for help
Vidya Viswanathan: Yeah.
Bon Ku: it was so good to see you, so good to connect after so many years. This is great. Thanks for coming on the show.
Vidya Viswanathan: Thank you for having me. This was a really great conversation.
Bon Ku: I'm such a fan of Vidya you can follow her on Twitter at V I D Y A V I S. And reach out to me on Twitter at B O N K U on Instagram at D R B O N K U. Design Lab is produced by Rob Pugliese, editing by Fernando Queiroz, theme music was created by Emmanuel Houston and the cover design by Eden Lew. See you next week.
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