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Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
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Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
"The magic of the electronic village is transforming health information. The mouse and keyboard have extended the stethoscope to the 500 million people now online." - Dr. Edward Creagan
The power of the medium inspires Dr. Edward Creagan as he searches for ways to share Mayo Clinic's vast resources with the general public.
Dr. Creagan, a Newark, N.J., native, is board certified in internal medicine, medical oncology, and hospice medicine and palliative care. He has been with Mayo Clinic since 1973 and in 1999 was president of the staff of Mayo Clinic. Dr. Creagan, a professor of medical oncology at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, was honored in 1995 with the John and Roma Rouse Professor of Humanism in Medicine Award and in 1992 with the Distinguished Mayo Clinician Award, Mayo's highest recognition. He has been recognized with the American Cancer Society Professorship of Clinical Oncology.
He describes his areas of special interest as "wellness as a bio-psycho-social-spiritual-financial model" and fitness, mind-body connection, aging and burnout.
Dr. Creagan has been an associate medical editor with Mayo Clinic's Web sites and has edited publications and CD-ROMs and reviewed articles.
"We the team of (the Web site) provide reliable, easy-to-understand health and wellness information so that each of us can have productive, meaningful lives," he says.
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Stress blog
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Feb. 18, 2009
Take the reins and reduce your stress
By Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
In 1912, a young German immigrant sailed for America from the grimy seaport of Hamburg, Germany. He was 10 years old and spoke not a word of English. He landed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia, a prominent German community and one of the premiere thoroughbred breeding and training areas in the country. This man was my grandfather. Horse racing became his passion and career.
As a teenager, he had the physique of a scaled-down blacksmith — muscular arms and chest, and hands the size of watermelons. He was also fearless, an asset when dealing with the thoroughbred horse. This creature weighs half a ton, has a brain the size of a walnut and has been bred for 300 years to run through a brick wall at 30 miles per hour. To ride these animals day after day is indeed one of the world's most dangerous professions. In fact, it is the only profession where an ambulance follows you on your way to work. Health insurance for a jockey is among the highest in all of professional sports.
My grandfather was at the top of his game from about 1920 to 1940, but then he became complacent. He lost his fitness. He lost his focus. And his career went into free fall. He died in his early 50s, a broken man who let the dream get away.
My father continued in the racetrack industry as a professional handicapper and a jockey's agent. He was an astute judge of jockeys and received a share of their compensation for his services. Watching my father, I learned some powerful lessons about stress and burnout.
Let me elaborate: The essence of stress is a lack of control over our circumstances. My father controlled variables relating to horse racing success by meticulous attention to detail — about the horse, the rider and the track conditions. He left nothing to chance. If the track was wet and if the horse did not do well in the slop, that horse was not a good bet. If the race was a mile or longer and the horse had only done well in shorter races, this was not a bettable event. In other words, it wasn't by luck or chance but with knowledge and plain hard work that he chose the races that offered the greatest benefit.
In observing my father's work with jockeys, I learned how these professionals are able to survive in one of the world's most dangerous professions. They faced the threat of death and paralysis every day. The stress of performing at a top level was ever present. So what can we learn from these diminutive gladiators who risked their lives every day? Here are the "secrets" of the ones who went the distance.
- Meticulous attention to fitness. This means running or walking and having a rock-solid understanding of nutrition — because a gain of a pound or two could signal the end of a jockey's career.
- Focus. The jockeys who are able to eliminate distractions in their personal lives and in their financial lives are the only ones who achieve careers spanning several decades.
- Business savvy. A generation ago professional jockeys — much like professional boxers — were relatively uneducated and many had little or no business sense. Not so today. They recognize that to decrease the stress in their lives they need to take charge of their finances and have a clear understanding of investments and how markets work. Equally important, they need to make sure their future is protected, for instance, by enrolling in disability insurance.
Let me elaborate on that last point. Several years ago jockeys paid little attention to insurance and just assumed that their union would take care of it. However, because of poor leadership a number of policies lapsed, as one particular rider discovered when he became paralyzed and learned that he had no insurance.
The message for us: We need to be preemptive. We need to be proactive. We need to control as best we can the variables that impact our health and wellness.
These are some of the lessons I have learned. I would sure appreciate hearing from our blog community so that some day we can all wind up in the winner's circle of life.
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