Stressed, doc? A hobby may help you

The sight of the white coat in the clinic is often known to strikingly lower the trepidation in the unwell. But little is known or spoken about the stress afflicting those donning the very white coat. Behind the impassive look adopted by doctors at work and behind their appreciation of the now-disputed virtue that hard work killed nobody lie stories of mental and physical burnouts. Increasingly, doctors are realising that time management, working smarter and not harder, and practising mindfulness is key to beating stress.Then, some doctors pursue hobbies which they find highly cathartic. Like urologist and robotic surgeon Rajendra Shimpi, who is as adept at making sculptures out of clay, plaster of paris and softstone as he is with crafting neo-bladders using the patient’s intestines in bladder cancer cases.On a visit to Mahabalipuram during his MS days, Shimpi was so taken in by artisans breathing magic into stone that he enrolled for a basic sculpting course there. More than three decades later, he is still game to messing his hands with moulding material whenever time permits outside his grinding 13-hour work schedule. The results of his labour of love are impressive — foot-high Ganeshas, human figurines, Sphinx replicas and Ajanta-style models. And when he’s weary of sculpting, he also paints.The paintbrush and palette have been gastroenterologist Vinay Thorat’s steady companions right from his school days in Solapur. The water colours on paper then have now yielded to oil paints on canvas. Working with oil paints offers him the flexibility of returning to his art whenever he finds time. The paints remain on the palette and the basic colour scheme does not change, a liberty not available when using water colours, he says.Nature landscapes and portraits still fuel Thorat’s imagination while at the easel but it is abstracts that truly hold his fancy. He says that while an abstract permits one to paint just about anything, one needs to first learn to paint well before venturing into the art. One’s ideas may be good but the representation may be poor.Thorat’s 75-odd paintings include depictions of the languid meadows of Denmark, the Satara tunnel leading to Sajjangad, Castle Rock town on the way to Goa, Heard Island in Antarctica and Jerusalem at night. He saves his elaborate and studied narration for his abstracts of the Madonna with infant Jesus and the cursed fig tree; Lord Shiva’s ‘damru’ and tandava dance; the rock-solid friendship of Damon and Pythias from Greek mythology; and, Zeus’s transformation into a bull, Taurus, to woo Europa.Chest physician Nitin Abhyankar, who sees around 50 patients a day, gets his “me time” during his morning walks at Sarasbaug. But even as he legs a decent 7.5km daily on the circuit, his fingers are constantly punching verses into his smartphone. He has written around 500 poems during his walks over the last few years, averaging one poem every two days.Abhyankar’s book, ‘Geetat Majhya’, containing 170 of these poems, was released online in January. Another book with 250 of his poems is expected to be released in a year’s time. He was the lyricist for the eight songs in a music CD prepared in 2016, ‘Swar He Diwane’, which sold 2,500 copies. He has also given lyrics for a Marathi duet sung by popular vocalist Shaan and his own doctor friend, Asmita Dixit. The entire proceeds of his sales have gone to social worker Dr Prakash Amte’s tribal development project at Hemalkasa in Gadchiroli district.For gynecologist Nina Mansukhani, creating repetitive patterns with pen or pencil on paper is what helps her bust stress. Her art form is Zentangle, which she says improves focus, stabilises breathing and basically gives her peace for the half hour or so that it takes to dish out a drawing. The patterns have been broken down to six steps each, so the artist knows what one pattern will look like. However, one may put in many patterns to create a different visual each time.The art form does not permit the use of erasers. Mansukhani says it is like life as we know it — there are no mistakes, just learning episodes. The art is supposed to be a corollary where one goes with the flow.Thorat, meanwhile, believes that chasing hobbies ought to be a family effort. For his part, he has encouraged his wife to pursue her singing career where she provides professional playback to Marathi movies. His son, a medical student, also paints, while his daughter, just out of medical school, writes poetry and has directed a short film. “A family man cannot have a hobby in isolation. You cannot be an icecube in a boiling pot of water,” he reasons.