Heroes Not Zombies

If there were only one truth, you couldn’t paint a hundred canvases on the same theme

I saw this quote at an exhibition of the work of Picasso and Cezanne in Aix en Provence. You only need to think about Cezanne’s paintings of Mont St Victoire to understand this. Or think of Picasso’s re-working of the themes of other great painters…Manet, Goya, and so on.

I find this also extremely applicable in health care. A patient never has only one story to tell, because as human beings, life is not like that. Not only is every patient’s story fascinating, but I find every time I meet a patient there’s a new story to hear and explore. Truth is never single. And it’s never complete. It’s always worth taking another perspective, hearing another story, exploring from a different angle