People often find it strange how I took up art, after having practiced medicine for two decades. Here in India, Arts and Medicine are two entirely different streams in our system of education, and one can not intermingle the two and pursue both together, even at undergraduate level.

However, that said, Art has always been used, interestingly enough, to introduce the principles of science to a child at primary school where illustrations and pictorial depictions outnumber the pages of text in science books. Even in medical school, the art of drawing plays a major role in teaching, learning and understanding of human Anatomy. Similarly, the basic knowledge of Anatomy and for that matter, also Geometry and Physics forms an essential part of Art school education. In other words, both artists and doctors benefit from the knowledge of Science and Anatomy. This is just one of the many things they have in common with each other.

First and foremost, they both connect with people at a much deeper level of understanding and sensibility. An artist is a sensitive human being and so does a doctor need to be. As doctors we are taught that medicine is an art. And art of seeing is unique to both the professions. Great observational skills and an eye for detail is what makes a good doctor and a good artist. Just as a physician diagnoses the subtle, non evident infirmity or disease behind obvious signs and symptoms of a patient, an artist too understands much more than what the eye sees in a painting or what words literally say in a poem.

For doctors, every patient is unique and so is the way they deal with them, in spite of broad standard treatment guidelines being available. Similarly, artists, though trained by the same formal art school education, learn to develop their own unique language and self improvised skills of handling tools and mediums.

Having worked in both the fields, (and together for ten years), I can assure you, without doubt that both these require hands on working and long hours of physical labour and dedication. And so, one can only do justice to it when one is passionate about it.

Arts and Medicine, both are compassion driven fields and serve the society in many ways owing to their immense healing potential. They have a kind of social responsibility when it comes to situations like today’s pandemic, for example. They help the society to cope up and survive in such difficult times. If I may say, they are two of the most essential professions in today’s context due to their therapeutic value and service to humanity.

History has shown that many great artists were doctors or scientists. From Leonardo da Vinci to John Keats, and there are many others, who have used the advantage of background knowledge of medical science and the experience of their practice to express their creativity in the most innovative and beautiful ways, also adding their own unique dimension to the existing field of art of their times. Ancient Greeks honoured the connection of medicine, music and poetry through Apollo. And some of the greatest Philosophers have been Scientists or Mathematicians and the vice versa is also true.
Even in today’s times, there are practicing physicians who have made their name as artists. The list is too long to even mention here.

It is high time we realised in India, that this demarcation and separation of professions is only in our mind and does not restrict us from exploring our abilities beyond what we are trained to do. It is only then that we can expect to grow as holistic human beings and as a society.