Leaking Identity
Isabel Elrington et al.
Unpicking emergent self-knowledge across the first term of Year this group developed a sequence of photographs around intersectionality and the notion of ‘leaking identity’:
In the first set of photographs we used surgical gloves…to create an association between each of us and medicine. The gloves physically hide the words written on our hands…in the second set of photographs the words on our hands show what some students may be feeling…
Sensitivity to personal and academic pressures on peers within group learning, studying and medical placements in addition to self-awareness was also an inspiration.
I connected with this piece because the idea of having to mask your identity and emotions in a clinical setting is something that has been playing on my mind since a tutorial we had on communication as a doctor. In a consultation and while at work a doctor is seen as a professional by the patient and this can be dehumanising. I like how the artists conveyed this idea by covering their faces with their hands, because the face is a symbol of identity and emotion. In addition an essential part of a doctors practice is learning to regulate their natural emotions when consulting with a patient in order to provide the best possible care. Although empathy and compassion are essential to providing healthcare it is often not the doctors place to show extreme emotion about the patients experience. This is effectively shown by the wearing of surgical gloves to cover up words that represent their own feelings. When a doctor ‘takes off their gloves’ or goes home from work those emotions may all be revealed at once. I think this piece has an important message and show why it’s is so essential for the medical community to be supportive of one another in terms of mental health and also balancing work and life to ensure that medics have emotional and social outlets.
I chose to write a review on this piece because I thought it to be extremely insightful. I think it is easy to see just the doctor/medical student and forget that they, themselves are a person, a human being. That they too can experience the very things that patients go to them for. I enjoyed this art piece because I believe it brings light to an unspoken topic. I think it empowers and reminds students/doctors to talk about how they are feeling and not just hide behind the ‘surgical gloves’.
This is a really interesting art piece and it makes us wonder: just how much of our personalities do we get to share as doctors? It reminds us that doctors are humans and that they also experience the highs and lows of life. I think you could also interpret the surgical gloves representing Medicine as a mask and something that covers our struggles; after all, we cannot lie that Medicine is a prestigious career path.
This piece manages to convey a lot — the wildly individual experiences each med student will go through, the pressure to keep these hidden from our peers and supervisors, and finally the apparent disconnect between the role of clinician and actually being a person — the idea that, as eventual doctors, we must conceal the parts of ourselves that are more human and ‘unprofessional’ in order to care for our patients.
The lack of colours and uniform, repetitive composition only serve to reinforce the idea of conformity.
I like this piece because it feels reflective of the differences between personal and student/professional life. This piece is accepting of personal highs and lows, some of the emotions portrayed are positive and others negative. With a glove over the face, the individuals are portrayed similarly, however, without the glove they are all portrayed differently. To me this conveys the individuality of how each of us present ourselves to each other, as well as in a professional setting, in contrast to how we may be feeling.