Expect anything worthwhile to take a lot of time

Yesterday I went to the Drawing Matters Symposium in York. It was a day of inspiring talks and presentations, all grappling with drawing and its pros and cons. I even met a couple of healthcare professionals (a nurse & a physio) using drawing in their PHDs – as a critical tool too, not just a “wellbeing” tool*

There was a particularly interesting talk from an educator about drawings role in primary education, and how a lack of teachers understanding of drawing and time to do it/teach it (all documented in Ofsted reviews every 3 years) is affecting how people later on in life construct and evaluate knowledge. This then, of course, systemically affects every area we work in – from government policies, to leadership, to how things are designed.

They also showed how drawing also helps bilingual kids learn english. So drawing can help bridge across two different languages, two different paradigms. Enhance collaboration and share practices!

But the knowledge thing got me thinking about the healthcare system.

I’ve been trying to make things to help showcase people’s work within radiotherapy & beyond and I’ve been *secretly* developing  a framework/workshops to teach healthcare students (maybe even staff) to be and think creatively.
The workshops are designed to be facilitate hands-on activities and discussion designed to build 4 essential creative muscles:

1. Seeing connections between disparate concepts
2. Developing an openness to new ideas
3. Building resilience through experimentation
4. Authentic reflection

These 4 things goes beyond what most people think of when we say creativity (no, it’s not just drawing, and it’s not just being “different”). In business, the creative mindset is highly sought-after because in this time of incredible uncertainty and rapid change, we need agile thinkers who can recognize patterns and interesting adjacencies, who naturally come up with person centred solutions not rigid-1-fits all master plans, and who are comfortable conducting rapid experiments to learn quickly. But it’s not as much appreciated  in healthcare, despite needing the same kind of things as described above.

But alas,  both healthcare and creativity is complicated.

For years, researchers have studied the “bias against creativity” in the workplace. University of Pennsylvania researchers coined this phrase for the tendency of creative ideas – and the people who espouse them – to be systematically diminished, disparaged, and discredited. This is interesting stuff. I’ve personally experienced it at school, across many places I’ve worked, including within the healthcare system too.

In recent work from Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, economists took a novel approach to innovation research by matching tax data to patent grants and applications for almost two decades in the US. They found that children of parents in the top 1% of the income distribution were “ten times more likely to become inventors than those in the bottom 50%.” This is significant, but perhaps not that surprising. The fact that you’re more likely to be successful if your parents have money isn’t the classical narrative of the American dream, but we know it’s true. This data is reproduced across the UK too.

The real surprise in the research was that invention was not correlated with creative ability. Instead, the degree of successful invention was more closely tied to environmental factors shaped by race, class and gender. The conditions children were exposed to at a young age in their neighborhoods and schools were the dominant factor in predicting future success in innovation. In other words, if children didn’t see members of their family or community engaging in non-traditional, innovative pursuits, the financial barriers related to access to opportunity were virtually impossible to beat. It didn’t matter how naturally talented someone was if they had nothing to model.

This makes me think back to the healthcare system and the transformational leadership role and HCP ability to enact change – whatever band/level/experience they have.

“Creativity” may not be the magic bullet – but creative people are. We know that intentionally or not, we are teaching the next generation how to be good foot soldiers, but not independent thinkers. More confoundingly, we know that the things we design (whether policies, products, systems, services, pathways, leaflets, etc) we will use in the future to communicate and convene, work and drive and govern will be built by a cosseted minority who have great access, but may not have the greatest ideas. And even if they do, they will not represent the diversity that they could have.

The experience of engaging in the creative process is profoundly transformative for people, especially young people. Moreover, it’s something where each of us can have outsized impact, just by simply being present.

So how do we do this?

First step: embed it back into education and learning.

Organization design – the attempt to structure systems to produce the outcomes we want – has been an established field for decades and healthcare is an amazing example of this. But here’s the thing – if you step back a bit, putting the two words “organization” and “design” next to each other is actually quite contradictory — the historical rigidity of a typical organization, next to the inherent complexity of the humans in that system, combined with the fluidity of design.

The healthcare paradigm is a tricky thing to navigate. It’s so ensteeped and rigid in empirical  data and conservative methods that it’s hard to move things. Each coupling reveals a tension between chaos and structure; linearity and the non-linear; closed and open systems.  Teaching people to be flexible and open – and fun – will show them their potential and feel more confident is being more critical and open about their world and collaboration around them.

Step 2: We need to Challenge the world around us.

At the 99U Conference, Liz Jackson, founder of the Inclusive Fashion + Design Collective said: “You never see a person on a cycling sign. You see one on a wheelchair sign. You’re saying you can’t use that object unless you are that person,” as she strode the stage with the aid of a cane. “We are disabled not by our bodies but by the world around us. It is a social construct. Disability is nothing more than a brand, the world’s ugliest brand.”

The stuff we ignore, or don’t try and change, creates our world – makes it harder for us to do our jobs, our lives and our patients lives. So by giving people the tools to critically think, to be open, to try stuff, we can literally make a difference. Equally, to repress what makes us unique is to artificially constrain all the potential we have to offer. 

Step 3: Learning different ways of thinking to see from different perspectives

This is where a creative education works. Sometimes we all need to step back—be an artist or a healthcare manager— to find the most appropriate methods or  solutions for the problems. You don’t have to do everything yourself, and it doesn’t always have to be a questionnaire or RCT.   Equally, we need to  increase awareness of our biases (which we have MANY in healthcare) and begin to advocate for change, Norregaard recommends creating a space with your team where it’s okay to talk through our biases.

Step 4: Believe in the learning loop.

We teach reflection well in healthcare, but I’d argue not in a way that’s super conducive to working life and transformation. We know that hospital Trusts that are transparent and have an open culture to mistakes, make less big mistakes overall, and have higher quality care outcomes. This isn’t by mistake. Reflecting upon what you do, enables you to work out where things can be better. But the trick is about making reflection natural, critical, authentic – actually empowering and enjoyable and  not like a chore, it’s tick box excerise for just your license. Creative thinking does this.

 

However, even with all of this – we know culture doesn’t change over night and there will always be people high-up that can not see the benefit in such things. Expect anything worthwhile to take a lot of time, but in the meantime – the artist in me has taught me that if you don’t or can’t get a seat at the table – just bring a folding chair.

Having ideals is like having a compass that always points to your heart instead of your brain. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change. Likewise, if anybody wants to be about change, they need to create.

 

 

(*side note: I believe the arts are incredibly important in theraputics however that’s a whole different debate). 

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Small changes

Time slows when the lights are fluorescent and the days are punctuated by the rounds of the medical staff.

My head of studies for my PhD is a woman who is internationally known for her creative-design- person-centred approaches to dementia care. She’s an Occupational Therapist, with a background in art psychotherapy, and a PhD in using Art & Design methods in enhancing care in care-homes.

So I was super stoked when she asked me to be part of 1 of her many projects (some paid work on top of PhD). She invited me to be part of a project where we will design a Dementia friendly eye clinic. In real life.

Yesterday we had a meeting with some service users (I hate this term); a carer and his wife who has dementia. We spoke about all of their experiences of the eye clinic, from everything from leaving home and parking all the way through to leaving at the end.

There were many flaws in their care, some avoidable, some just a mistake, some just part of the design flaw within the pathway.

What I discovered when we looked back at our notes was that the things we could make better for people with dementia – would actually make these things better for EVERYONE who uses the service. How crazy is that?

I remember a few years ago, I had some crazy neurological stuff going on and it really effected my eye sight – I’d get like flashes of white light in my vision and I lost some of my peripheral vision. I had to see the eye doctor a bunch of times.

It was crazy just how unusual and difficult it was to go through that pathway. Eye drops that sort of itched, and we’d all sit staring at a wall, packed in like a crowded bus down a dim dirty coloured cream corridor. You couldn’t see anything clearly, but there was loads of small text leaflets teasing you to try and read them on the walls.  Your eyes hurt from the light. When it was time for anyone to call you, you’d get up and not be able to see who and where they were calling you from. Then the actual examination of the eye is uncomfortable – you have to lean onto some medical equipment – and being small, my feet didn’t touch the floor, there’s no arms on the chair & you’r completely unsteady – and my neck hurt from stretching it out across a small table to sit my chin in the face of the eye doctor.

It felt undignified, and intimate and vulnerable and stupid all at the same time.

Once they made me sign to consent to something I couldn’t even read because of the eye drops.

And then when it’s all over, you leave – by feeling the walls around you – and trying to remember which way was out. When you finally make it back outside – the light is bright. But in an unfamiliar way – and navigating the world through blurred vision enhances a crazy headache of sorts.

That was my experience as a young-un. Someone who has pretty decent eye sight (or did).

Now imagine that experience for someone who struggles to convey pain, or issues. Who is confused? Who has learning difficulties, short-term memory loss. Who can’t read?! 

I can’t imagine how disorientating and how scary and uneasy it must be.

I’ve been missing my clinical aspect of being a radiotherapist recently.

I think it’s the team work and the patients I miss the most. So I’m really looking forward to being part of a team, working with patients and their families, in a clinical setting again – but this time my main aim will be to come up with & test & prototype cool, person-centered creative & critical solutions — whilst at the same time learning some cool new researcher skills. Mostly how to get something you make, and apply it and embed it into the system. This is a skill I am really missing.

From just 1 meeting, I’ve already paralleled some similarities  of things that could change within radiotherapy and the dementia care pathway — there’s just such a long way to go. But, I’m excited!

We already have 4 areas of focus, and ideas to prototype. It’s too early to share or know if they’re any good or useful. But I can’t wait to share with you guys our future work on this!

Lasso The Moon

This week I was invited to #PatientsAsPartners16 event – It was organized in big part by Roz Davies – as part of Recovery Enterprises in Sheffield, NHS Confederation and Y & H Academic Health Science Network  & a bunch of other organizations and people.

Drawing events and workshops and conferences aren’t an unusual thing for me. It’s a huge part of my bread-and-butter. I  get to draw all kinda of things! From health & social-care, to technology, the government, to film, to education, to science, to social-media, to inspirational stories. You name it. I’ve had the opportunity to have a good draw of it. And in the 5 years of doing it, I’ve learnt a lot about subjects I never would have ever really thought about before. I’d love to, in the future, write a small book – based on all the things I’ve learnt as this “graphic facilitator”.

But  the ‘Patients as Partners’ event and working with Roz again reminded me of where this journey started for me. Back in 2012, I drew a  bunch of events for Roz and her colleagues at NHS England. It was all about trying to make the NHS more “people-powered”. We worked with patients and other service users like carers, ensuring they were part of the new design of PCTs turning into CCGs in march 2013. That the patient expertise and experience was central and a big part of helping local CCGs commission services that reflect the needs of their local community and patients.  That hopefully patients would be partners in this process, and not just an “involve a service user tick box” process.

And these “lay-members” and other patients relayed their experiences of having to navigate this fragmented system that just didn’t understand their needs – even though these needs represent the same needs of 1000’s more living with the same specific chronic medical conditions. And this misunderstanding, or even rejection of their needs, even though not done on  purpose or without care – was the start of a scaring and traumatic time for these people. But they didn’t give up.  They used their resilience to push forward new ideas, and new ways of working. Or setting things up to help others in similar positions. They learnt everything they could, they tried to redesign the system.

I had just started my medical journey at around the same time. And in the beginning it was fine, but the longer I was in this limbo position – the more I hated being a patient. I still hate it, probably even more. I feel judged, in not a good way. I feel ashamed – of myself for not being able to fix what’s happening, for not being stronger. I’m spoken to like I’m stupid. Healthcare professionals (worth noting not all of them, of course) say loaded sentences to me – try and blame things on me because I am “young and female” – seriously -. I feel bad for not fitting into the [healthcare] system (story of my life). I’m an issue, not an assest. I’m “complex in the way I present”. It’s so loaded.  I’m complex because I’m a human being and we are complex creatures, no?   Healthcare professionals can’t wait to discharge me – with no solutions or suggestions or even help. And I just think, my poor poor GP.

(I want to say that as noted in many posts that I have been shown incredible care & kindness by most HCPs and I think the NHS is phenomenal and has saved me in many ways – but that doesn’t mean there’s not issues or unkind words in the process)

And as someone who intrinsically makes connections across fields, knowledge, see how things are linked, no matter how big or small those connection are, who loves working with people, and coming up with creative ways – or trying new things/ways of seeing if something works. I find this whole process really rigid and foreign & I can’t understand why it’s like that? Because surely, people aren’t like this?!

And as a result of this old school way, I’m left completely alone. In constant pain – causing unnecessary health problems for future smizz as I try and figure out whether different things/medications/diets/ect will work. I’d be lying if this experience hasn’t made me Question the value and the worth of my own life. I’m often left feeling like I’m not even worth the time of the system because I’m complex and they’re not understanding how it has all affected me. Having to “live with it” without any direction, advice – or even hope – in what to do to help or move forward. It’s really, really hard.

Luckily, the struggle is my life. And I’m motivated by experience to try and make things better. And whilst I’d rather not have this pain and experiences, it makes me more empathetic to others struggles.

So, drawing all these events – where we’re trying to change culture, to redesign things so that actually we have care – not a just a stop and fix and go system – really resonated with me. And I thought if these people (patients) are using their experiences to make and design new things to compliment the system — then maybe I can use my own experience and my intuitive knowledge/creativity to be a better healthcare professional – and change the system that way. One -on One. Person by person. Making sure people feel listened to. Not judge anyone. And understand that sometimes it’s the really small things that make the biggest differences to someone, so not to just make assumptions. 3 years on, 7 weeks before I qualify, I try and make sure that no one leaves my care without knowing the support, plans and options for them going forward, and i always try and make sure they know that they can come back – – with questions, concerns, ideas. ect.

So that’s why I retrained. Due to hearing all these stories and seeing the virtue of human resilience. Not to back down, to help healthcare to become more than just instruction-based (practice, protocols) but also idea-based (critical thinking, envision ideas of others).

And the artist in me is integral to the process of helping to do this.  Patients as Partners discussed how we need to be more creative. We need to help people understand. We need to re-design new pathways, processes, community links, use peoples knowledge from lived experiences.  Nightingale showed that soldiers weren’t dying mainly on the battlefield, but instead they were dying in the hospitals due to the poor sanitary conditions there. Nightingale used this now famous diagram to influence hygiene practices in military hospitals, which resulted in lower mortality rates. The kind of design that Nightingale used can be thought of as, “Design to improve understandability.”  

For the past few years there’s been debate about healthcare reform. But for all the talk of funding and not being able to afford to do things, there’s a lot less talk about the stories and lives of the people who are the center:  patients and HCP.  And I believe art/design/creativity is going to help us bring the people, their knowledge, their experiences and co-produce things that matter and bring the people who matter to the center of it all (Although NHS does need WAY more funding, there’s no denying this ).

It’s hard to believe that 2012, doing the People Powered NHS and doing the Patient as Partners event in 2016 – of how much it has come together, of how much it has inspired my journey and thought process. And if that’s not proof that peoples stories can help change things and help us learn, help us to empathize, and grow – then I don’t know what is.

There remains a misconception that health is determined by health care. Through hoping to change things through art/design/creativity we can make cities healthier, we can involve the people who it affects, and learn from what helps/makes them worse, we can make people feel more empowered & valued, and in turn we can make people’s jobs feel more satisfied. And we will make the healthcare system more sustainable and caring in the process. And make society healthier and better in the long run.

It sounds all a bit grandiose but actually, after years of listening to people not giving up and showing how they’ve helped to change things locally and beyond through their lived experiences. It’s hard to ignore and not feel inspired. Hold onto ideas, esp when they’re considered risky. We can totally lasso the moon. I’m almost sure of it.

 

This is a great project that showcases the above: http://www.recoveryenterprises.co.uk/about/

Patients as Partners project will be written up into a report with recommendations.