The poetry of broken rules
As a lover of words as much as of animals, I have been known to write incensed letters to publications concerning the quality of their linguistic editing. Apologies having duly been made and accepted, I then feel like an owner who, having scolded a puppy for chewing up a shoe, wonders whether the shoe wasn’t old anyway and the chew marks not so noticeable from a distance. But where is the line between old and new and at what distance do imperfections disappear? In other words, if there are rules, when is it allowable and indeed recommendable, to bend them?
If words were only about communication, i.e. getting the message across, surely no-one would fuss about spelling mistakes, sms-language and bad grammar. It is, however, the sense of doing what is right because it is right according to a certain set of standards, which drives the red-pen mentality to correct mistakes. Yet it is the ability to be flexible within those standards that allows for the creativity of poetry and literature and for the ability to communicate in a patchwork of words with your Malawian gardener or the tourist from China.
The same principles could be applied to a profession like veterinary science. While it is the rules and regulations that create an ideal standard of practice, it is the ability to be flexible and creative within those standards that sometimes saves the day. And the patient.
I often feel great sorrow when an animal has to be euthanized due to financial constraints because the owners cannot afford the state-of-the-art diagnostics or treatment recommended by the veterinary authorities. With some lateral thinking and creativity, the rules of wound treatment or fracture repair or surgical asepsis can be bent to accommodate the individual case. (Of course, always keeping in mind clients’ propensity to sue when things go wrong.) I have seen broken bones, which should have been pinned or plated, heal with only cage rest. I have seen wounds as big as a dinner plate, which should have been subjected to repeat surgery, heal to little more than a scar.
Just as surely as I am not recommending broken sentences and skewed grammar as a rule of thumb, I am not recommending treatment shortcuts or slapdash surgery. Of course there have to be rules, there have to be standards. But it might be worth our while to occasionally bend the rules, to turn a blind eye to the chewed shoes in life and see them for the poetry they are in a puppy’s eyes.
(Previously published in VetMed magazine)
© Ilse van Staden 2012
If words were only about communication, i.e. getting the message across, surely no-one would fuss about spelling mistakes, sms-language and bad grammar. It is, however, the sense of doing what is right because it is right according to a certain set of standards, which drives the red-pen mentality to correct mistakes. Yet it is the ability to be flexible within those standards that allows for the creativity of poetry and literature and for the ability to communicate in a patchwork of words with your Malawian gardener or the tourist from China.
The same principles could be applied to a profession like veterinary science. While it is the rules and regulations that create an ideal standard of practice, it is the ability to be flexible and creative within those standards that sometimes saves the day. And the patient.
I often feel great sorrow when an animal has to be euthanized due to financial constraints because the owners cannot afford the state-of-the-art diagnostics or treatment recommended by the veterinary authorities. With some lateral thinking and creativity, the rules of wound treatment or fracture repair or surgical asepsis can be bent to accommodate the individual case. (Of course, always keeping in mind clients’ propensity to sue when things go wrong.) I have seen broken bones, which should have been pinned or plated, heal with only cage rest. I have seen wounds as big as a dinner plate, which should have been subjected to repeat surgery, heal to little more than a scar.
Just as surely as I am not recommending broken sentences and skewed grammar as a rule of thumb, I am not recommending treatment shortcuts or slapdash surgery. Of course there have to be rules, there have to be standards. But it might be worth our while to occasionally bend the rules, to turn a blind eye to the chewed shoes in life and see them for the poetry they are in a puppy’s eyes.
(Previously published in VetMed magazine)
© Ilse van Staden 2012
