I interviewed Mr Adair during one of my placements, a patient in his fifties who had already endured two renal transplants. His first at the age of just 19 . Mr Adair had been troubled for three years with an unexplained case of nephritis which the doctors he visited originally thought was a result of a non-existent drinking problem. They concluded that he was a typical teenage drinker, this meant his kidneys finally failed. This injustice angered me hugely and was a major source of my inspiration for this creative piece as, in my eyes, it high-lighted how high and mighty the doctors thought they were to be to dismiss such a case with assumptions. Mr Adair’s mother volunteered to donate her kidney, making this one of the first live donor transplants. As a result the issue quickly gained significant media attention and was well documented in the press. Mr Adair has since recovered from his two transplant operations and is living a normal life, though is prescribed 26 tablets to take daily as a result of the operations.

In my sketch I endeavour to portray what Mr Adair experienced through the duration of and following his first kidney transplant in the early 1970’s. Due to the relative novelty of the operation and the amount of media attention Mr Adair seems to have treated rather like a guinea pig in a lab, an object to experiment on. My image shows Mr Adair being treated like a puppet: a toy with which doctors and other medical practitioners ‘played’ or tested. They constantly and repeatedly visited him, almost objectifying him as an object or plaything, reducing, in my eyes, his human status.

The clean and composed hand in charge of the puppet in the drawing could be interpreted as representing the medical profession and the control they had over the patient, such as when they chose not to consider him for treatment because they assumed he was just a heavy drinker. They regulated his medication, food, activities and most importantly, his visitors. The bowed head of the figure depicted represents the depression he is experiencing as a result of this treatment. I’ve drawn the figure in a similar position to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ to convey how he gave up his life, be it temporarily for three years, to medicine, so doctors could study his progression. This being similar to how Jesus surrendered his life for the forgiveness of our sins and saving mankind. The ease at which the hand holds the figure also shows how light and pathetic Mr Adair was after he lost weight and his will to stand up for himself.

I chose a simple drawing or sketch as the monochromatic colour scheme represents the colourlessness and bleakness of the depression described by Mr Adair, it made me think of the world turning grey. The framing was chosen to represent my perspective, as an outsider, showing frustration and dark sadness at the situation. The image also focuses on a portal of light surrounded by darkness which represents the window in which Mr Adair could see his family. I thought of the life in his eyes and it was this image of darkness with a glimmer of hope that sprang to mind. There is no one else in the picture to portray the loneliness he felt throughout his ordeal as he underwent barrier nursing and could only see friends and family through a small portal. Finally, a harsh image which struck me during the interview related to the liberal prescription of steroids which burned a hole in Mr Adair’s stomach. Hence I’ve used black shadow dripping off the figure’s body to put across the kind of treatment that he put up with.

Mr Adair’s treatment was hopefully a rare case, and I have expressed his experiences in a negative light. However, the inhumanity of Mr Adair’s ordeal touched me and made me think that when doctors treat patients they should put themselves in the patient’s perspective.