How Safety Can Undermine Creativity.

OBJECTIVE. Safety and creativity are important but are not entirely convergent medical goals: Physicians are responsible to avoid harm, but progress in medicine requires creativity and risk taking. To strike the appropriate balance between the two, radiologists need to understand potential points of tension between them, ensuring that neither completely overrides the other. CONCLUSION. For medical discovery and innovation to thrive in the future, we need to foster a culture that prizes habits of thinking outside the box, posing novel questions, and taking risks. Caution and safety are important but so too are courage and imagination. If our understanding is ever to reach a higher level, we must be willing to let go of the rung to which we are clinging.