Waiting Rooms
Tim Graham
I have thoroughly enjoyed working on my creative piece and found it fixating. It was challenging to formulate a concept and then develop it into the finished piece. I drew inspiration from a diagram I found online from a medical textbook showing a lumbar puncture being performed. I thought it interesting that in order to perform this procedure the patient is required to adopt the foetal position – a defensive position adopted by the vulnerable. I then thought of alternative scenarios where patients feel vulnerable. In the drawing the individual is sitting in a chair (though their body is still in foetal position). Interestingly it does not look at all unnatural to sit in that posture – though I hoped it would invoke, alongside the bareness of the figure, a sense of subtle vulnerability.
It is not clear why the patient is feeling vulnerable whether they are waiting for an appointment, news about someone close to them, or perhaps recovering from receiving bad news – but that is not really important. All of these are scenarios where patients may feel anxious, vulnerable and afraid, and this is about an empathetic response to that person.
Whole Person Care – Year Four
I love this image and find it unsettling and reassuring at the same time.
Really evokes a sense of vulnerability in the waiting room, the water cooler and clock reminders of mortality.
I think this picture illustrates how scared and vulnerable patients can feel when going to see a doctor. The fact that the person is naked could also illustrate that they feel exposed.
This is fantastic! I love the lack of detail and colour – it really mirrors the emotions of desperation and lucidity we can feel when in a waiting room at the hospital.
I think the thing I find most outstanding in this drawing is the portrayal of the patient’s vulnerability and helplessness symbolised through the foetal position. The patient has no control over the situation or their illness, which is resonant throughout. I also love the ambiguity created within the piece, it is unknown whether the person depicted is a patient, friend or family member and therefore shows the real effect of illness, not just on the patient but on loved ones too. Illness impacts many aspects of a people’s lives.
What I love most about this piece is that it serves as a wonderful reminder of one of the most forgotten aspects of medicine: the effect that a patient’s care can have on their mental wellbeing. It’s crucial for both medical students and doctors to remember that – above all else – patients are people with feelings, emotions, and vulnerabilities that we must all strive to understand.
I think this drawing really illustrates how a routine, perhaps uninteresting appointment for a doctor can actually cause extreme anguish for a patient. Doctors see patients daily, but seeing a doctor as a patient can be very stressful, and may cause the patient to feel vulnerable and exposed as he does not know what the doctor will tell him and the possible deleterious implications of what he has been told.
In my opinion, the most poignant feature of this drawing is the harrowing simplicity of the patient, which really highlights how empty they must feel. Coupled with the absence of clothing, the drawing really exposes human vulnerability.
To me this piece embodies the isolation, anxiety and social disconnect felt by a patient waiting for their appointment. The lack of colour and minute details of the waiting room depicts the room from the perspective of the patient, to whom their surroundings are drab, colourless and featureless. The head in hands posture and the adaptation of a semi-fetal position indicates to me the patient’s desire to shut out the world and isolate themselves from it as a result of the mental toll of their condition on their life. I find that this piece highlights the mental aspect of patients’ health and the need for healthcare professionals to consider it and make sure that it is not neglected.
This art work shows to me the vulnerability of a patient and how a consultant has to communicate in order to make the patient feel more comfortable and express more clearly the reasons they have come in to the practice.
I feel the simplistic nature of this picture, particularly the simplicity of the individual in the image, shows how some people may label themselves as ‘just a patient’. This comes from the lack of identifiable features on the subject in the drawing. However in reality this patient will be an individual, someone who requires a medical practitioner to treat them uniquely and tailor care specifically for them. Overall to me this picture shows how important it is for those in the medical profession to remember that each patient is different and therefore they ways of caring for them will vary.
I really like how this artwork portrays the vulnerability of a patient. Even more so, the absence of individuality shown on the body of the patient represents how this patient can be anyone, regardless of their gender, background or age and they can feel vulnerable when waiting for an appointment at the hospital. This further showcases how vital it is for a doctor to always make sure their patient feels as comfortable as possible even in what may seem a simple procedure.