Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. I”m glad January is over. Let’s hope February will be better. I’ve been incredibly busy with issues at work and have had little time for writing or exploring new ideas. I did get a chance to visit my daughter Miranda up in Boston last week, and as we talked about my work in health care and hers in arts education, a phrase came to my mind, The Creativity Contagion.

One of the really important movements in health care right now is the empowered patient, or ePatient. Often this empowerment is tied to being online; finding information about diseases and connecting with others to address the disease. It seems to work well for privileged patients, who have gone to college, had good careers and made enough money to be comfortable, but what about other patients, those struggling to get by day to day, those who are not empowered in their daily lives. How do we empower these patients?

My ideas started crystallizing around a 3D printer we got at work. There is something empowering about having an idea, learning how to take the idea and make something of it, and, in the case of a 3D printer, see the idea actually take shape as an object in front of you.

Creativity may be the key to empowerment that I’ve been looking for. Too much health care is defensive. We get our shots and change our diets to avoid getting sick. When we do get sick, we go to the doctor’s office to get better. Wellness gets bandied about but not pursued as much as it should be, especially when we are dealing with chronically ill patients.

We try to avoid getting sick. What we should really be doing is trying to become creative, with all the hope and empowerment that comes with it.

Perhaps that captures what I hope to do with a 3D printer at a health center, Promote Empowered Wellness Through Spreading the Contagion of Creativity.