Do you ever feel like a hovering helicopter, eyes fixed on every corner of the horizon, yet swift and nimble to the next need, while trying to stay aloft with a missing blade? If you have ever stood in the middle of a shift, a surgery, a conversation, or a decision that could not wait, and felt all of that at once, then you already know what it is to move like a dragonfly.
My deepening admiration for dragonflies developed over time. When they flew around, I did not move away, wave a hand, or turn away. They were lustrous and only hung out nearby for a little while. They seemed quietly busy. This stuck with me and what I discovered is a profound connection between physicians and dragonflies.
The agility and transformation of the dragonfly
Dragonflies have four wings that function independently making them exceptionally agile in flight. They possess the ability to hover, fly up to 30 miles per hour, including upside down, and even continue to operate with a broken wing. As physicians, we are masters of navigating speedily forward and sometimes it feels we do it upside down, too. We know when to linger and then change directions instantly to be in a different frame of mind. In our care for patients, we display our fluidity while providing big picture, small picture assessments.
The unusual life cycle of dragonflies requires it to live two lives in one: morphing from aquatic nymph to creature of the air. A change so extreme it demands an entirely different body for each stage. Physicians know this kind of transformation intimately, having spent a chunk of their 20s on a fiercely long-term, goal-oriented path, building themselves in the deep, before rising.
The vision of a dragonfly is nearly 360 degrees including vision in color, ultraviolet, and polarized light. Physicians function as if we have omni-directional vision not to only to see the steps ahead but in between all the gray layers to our decision-making. Dragonflies pre-dated dinosaurs and have survived for 300 million years. We have survived training to operate autonomously. We take pride in our stamina even when we are overwhelmed, discouraged, or weary. We keep enduring.
The dragonfly as a cultural symbol of medicine
Dragonflies are cherished in many cultures and represented in art, decoration, and poetry. In Navajo culture, the dragonfly is a sacred symbol of pure water, life, and serves as a conduit between the living world and the spirit world, much as a physician stands at the threshold between illness and recovery. Additionally, Navajo folklore tells of a dragon that turned into a dragonfly and could not return back. A physician may act as a guide for patients through transformations of the body and spirit that may change the course of their lives.
The Chinese note the dragonfly as a symbol of renewal, harmony, and flexibility: qualities that lie at the very heart of medicine. In the Japanese Samurai tradition, the dragonfly is revered for its forward-flying, relentless nature, never retreating, always pressing ahead. Samurai called the dragonfly a “victorious insect” and wore its image as an emblem of courage and fearlessness on their armor; a physician, too, must enter spaces of suffering and crisis without hesitation. Each of these cultures arrives at the same truth: that the dragonfly is, above all else, a symbol of transformation.
We, physicians, are human beings doing an extraordinary thing and that distinction matters. We must return to a space where compassion for ourselves is not a luxury but a foundation, where being extraordinary does not mean being impervious, but rather being fully and courageously human. And that fullness of humanity is reflected in what the dragonfly has come to mean across many cultures, an extraordinary creature of vision, emergence, agility, yes, but also of transformation. Not simply revered for the way it flies, but for what the flight represents.
Gita Balakumar is a pediatrician.
