The Shadowed Carer
Catherine McNamara
My creative piece is based on an encounter in a GP practice. A woman came in to talk to the doctor about her husband for whom she was a full-time carer. As the consultation progressed the GP started asking her about her health and wellbeing. The woman started to cry and confessed she wasn’t coping well. She wasn’t sleeping properly – her own health was clearly not her priority. She already had diagnosed depression and was neglecting her general health due to the severity of her husband’s condition. The GP talked with her for a while and spoke about the importance of self-care and a balance in her life. He also supported the woman with some of the worries she had about her husband.
I chose this clinical encounter because it struck me that often carers who live with the person they care for put their own health second. On reflection, perhaps the patient came in with the pretense of talking about her husband and his treatment – as when asked about herself she seemed so relieved to be able to talk to confide in the doctor. It showed me the vital importance of active listening and trust in the doctor-patient relationship.
I decided to develop this creative piece in mixed media because it uses multiple different materials and combines them into one piece of art. There are many aspects of patients’ lives which contribute to their health and wellbeing including social, psychological, environmental and physical. The muted, grey figure behind the brightly coloured image is meant to represent how at home carers can put their own health second to those that they care for.
I felt a great sympathy towards this woman as it was clear she was struggling to cope and needed someone to talk to. The way she unloaded her feelings to the GP gave the impression she had been holding them in for a while. It showed me the importance of talking through your problems with someone you feel safe with. I also felt upset that this woman was going through this struggle alone.
When I left the surgery, I reflected on the importance of looking at the bigger picture and the many aspects of patients’ lives which contribute to them turning up at the GP practice. It also made me think more about the role of carers in society, how essential and often under-valued they are.
I chose this clinical encounter because it struck me that often carers who live with the person they care for put their own health second. On reflection, perhaps the patient came in with the pretense of talking about her husband and his treatment – as when asked about herself she seemed so relieved to be able to talk to confide in the doctor. It showed me the vital importance of active listening and trust in the doctor-patient relationship.
I decided to develop this creative piece in mixed media because it uses multiple different materials and combines them into one piece of art. There are many aspects of patients’ lives which contribute to their health and wellbeing including social, psychological, environmental and physical. The muted, grey figure behind the brightly coloured image is meant to represent how at home carers can put their own health second to those that they care for.
I felt a great sympathy towards this woman as it was clear she was struggling to cope and needed someone to talk to. The way she unloaded her feelings to the GP gave the impression she had been holding them in for a while. It showed me the importance of talking through your problems with someone you feel safe with. I also felt upset that this woman was going through this struggle alone.
When I left the surgery, I reflected on the importance of looking at the bigger picture and the many aspects of patients’ lives which contribute to them turning up at the GP practice. It also made me think more about the role of carers in society, how essential and often under-valued they are.
Effective Consulting, Year One
Creative Assignment Prize-winner 2019-2020
Creative Assignment Prize-winner 2019-2020
This piece is extremely eye opening, and I think it effectively highlights how many people often forget about how important carers are to keep the health care system and society functioning as a whole, and how many more people are carers than most people perceive. It also helped me improve my understanding of how to help carers in my future career – as they often need someone to talk to, but will rarely open up about themselves unless encouraged. It made me more realistically try and understand the strain that carers are under, as they often put themselves last and never get proper breaks from their caring role. Thank you so much for opening my eyes on a topic I hadn’t thought of much before.
This extract highlights the importance of supporting carer’s and their families when caring for a vulnerable patient. Through my clinical encounters as well as discussed in the extract, a lot of the time carer’s neglect their own health in order to care for patients. Also, a lot of the time carers feel like they cannot talk about their feelings and hence have a lot of feelings bottled up. This in turn leads to an impact on the carer’s physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. It is really important to encourage these discussions between carer’s and clinicians. It made me think about how i can implement this into my clinical practice in the future by making sure that I encourage discussions with my patients that are carers and let them know that it is okay to reach out for support and that they are not alone. It helped me to improve my understanding of this topic and made me consider in the future how i can better support carers.
This piece is a thought-provoking and illustrative piece that explores themes perhaps overlooked in the chaos of everyday life. Often, both in a healthcare and wider societal context, major focus is placed on a patient suffering with an illness or disability. Less focus is placed on those who have to look after the needs of those patients at home, leading to a lack of support for these carers. This piece illustrates this beautifully with two figures; one in the foreground, in bright colour and one in the background in greyscale. This effortlessly illustrates the loss of identity of carers and the emotional ramifications of caring for someone else. I really appreciate this piece bringing attention to these issues and I hope it will encourage a more open discourse between clinicians and carers. By validating and acknowledging the hardship carers go through, it may lighten their burden. This piece has inspired me to expand my knowledge of how to support carers in my future clinical career.
I felt that this piece was incredibly prescient- as it highlights the vital role that carers, both formal and informal, play in our healthcare systems. Many however struggle with burden of caring for both themselves and the patient, which is exacerbated the lack of resources available to help them, especially during the covid pandemic, resulting in carers suffering both physically and emotionally. The piece helped me to realise the importance of making sure that carers feel that they are able to reach out to clinicians and discuss any issues that they are facing, so that they can access the support that they need- so that they are better able to care for themselves and their patient.
I was really moved by this artwork as it shows the realities and the effects of an individual’s health on those around them. I think that it is often very easy to forget about the effect that diagnosis has on family and carers when treating patients from a doctors perspective as they are solely there to provide care for the patient.
I interpreted this in two ways. The first being that as the carer who is behind the patient is in the distance. It somewhat represents how they are usually in the shadow of the patient and to some extent it is as if their existence is only acknowledged medically due to the patient being there- which is evidently shown as the patient is shown in vivid colour but the carer is shown in grey tones. And, I think in turn this can be isolating for the carer and somewhat effective on their mental health as grey often symbolises sadness and loneliness.
Another way in which I interpreted this as the carer is in dull toned colours and the patient in more vibrant and vivid colours. It could represent how the existence of the carer gives the patient life to the extent where in the process they lose themselves by devoting themselves to looking after a loved one- which is generally the norm when it comes to carer-patient relationships. However, I do think as there are some blue tones in the figure if the carer this could emphasise how the carer feels as if their presence is of importance to the patient as this is what deep blue symbolises. So it may show how they feel as those despite the emotional effects of being a carer they know that without them the patient would struggle and maybe this gives them satisfaction in their role.
This piece of artwork particularly attracted me for the deep meaning behind it. It highlights the importance of carers in society, but at the expense of them, as they suffer, both mentally and physically, in caring for in this case, her loved one. More often than not, although care is becoming increasingly patient-centred so the relatives and close ones are thought of, the care is still centred on that one patient and does not look at the relatives or close ones, that are suffering equally, if not more than the patient.
It is shown here clearly from this piece of artwork that the relatives and close ones do need to be thought of and asked about in the consultations too, as their health is equally as important as the one they are caring for, and if their health declines, they will be unable to look after themselves and others well.
I think the colour and size contrast works well here- the patient is brightly coloured and larger whereas the carer is of grey/dull colours and smaller, placed behind. It emphasises the fact that the carer is living in the shadow of the patient in every aspect of life.
I was drawn to this piece of art because of my own experiences of caring for my grandma. During the last months of her life, along with a professional live-in-carer, my family and I looked after her at home. As a family, we can relate to the effect caring for an ill person has on your lifestyle, for example on your sleep. My own experience has also helped me recognise the importance of carers and how they can positively impact a person’s life, which I think this piece represents through the position of the carer just behind the person in the foreground. I like how the piece of art shows a carer in the background, and the dark colours contrasting with the bright colours in the foreground remind us that behind many patients there are carers that are often forgotten. It tells us about the impact of illness on the carers rather than just the patient and reminds us to involve them in our clinical practice.
I was initially drawn to this piece as a result of its effective simplicity, but I was then caught by the almost tangible metaphor of a patient and carer or loved one. This felt to me like a representation of an informal carer and patient situation, likely the patient is a loved one of the carer.
I felt the piece could be a representation of a carer living in a patients shadow, all the focus being on the patient not the ripple affect that illness causes in the loved ones of any patient. It could also represent what you give to a patient as a carer. The blue streaks running through the figure in the foreground suggested that they had been given from the darker figure in the background. This symbolises what you give up as a carer, whether these are things you sacrifice on purpose or just as a part of your work or love for the patient.
The value of this piece I think is partly in comparison with the other works here, it is one of few works that are not specifically clinically, science or doctor focused, I think this amplifies the impact of the work as it sits as an isolated minority showing how overlooked those who we rely on for care are.
This piece is striking because of its simplicity, but it is also very effective. It can be easy to forget about the difficulties of caring for someone that you love, but this piece showcases that struggle. Through the use of colour, it masterfully illustrates the process of losing your own identity and health as you pour yourself into trying to make the person you are caring for shine brighter. This piece hits a very personal place for me, and it will stick in my mind for some time.
This piece and its explanation resonated with me as someone who used to be a carer. Yes- carers need so much more recognition of their own thoughts, feelings and wellbeing, especially when they are so used to not thinking about themselves first.
This also highlighted to me how confused I was about what defines someone as a carer, because I always assumed someone had to have experienced the above to be a carer; whereas I only did bits here and there. However, the roles and responsibilities I was given were beyond what you would expect to do for someone of my age, and were beyond the normal range of tasks you would do for a “healthy” sibling. The realisation I was a carer was a hard one, because I would always try to explain “I’m not a proper carer, I didn’t do x, y, or z.” I felt guilty that someone else relied on me because I wanted them to be able to support themself- as much as I did struggle to support my sibling I knew there were people doing more than me and this further undermined how I felt.
My experiences and revelations will benefit me as a clinician and will help me to identify and care people who are carers (even if they themselves haven’t realised yet).