One step at a time
Tom Edwards
Mixed-media
I chose to base my creative piece on our experience as medical students during lockdowns. I used photoshop to incorporate a drawing and a photograph.
It was easy to feel quite alone in your work during lockdowns as everything was done from home. The darkness at the bottom of the stairs represents the boredom of lockdown, with bars and pubs being shut, and sports being cancelled. The light at the top of the stairs represents the summer, the future easing of restrictions and finishing our exams – which we all feel is in view now.
I wanted to show how daunting the Medical Course can feel as a First-Year, with many different challenges still yet to come, but also how we can break these down into individual steps and each one that we complete takes us closer to the end.
I imagine that everyone, including medical students and doctors have been able to relate to this feeling, having to carry on with work and study – despite spending most of our time at home and behind a computer.
Effective Consulting, Year One, 2021
I think this image effectively reinvents the idea of a light at the end of the tunnel and introduces a visual element of the difficulties people can face in attempting to reach the light. The use of stairs showcases how getting through hard times, such as the pandemic or even treatment and recovery, usually involves some sort of will and effort on your part. The intensity of the light at the top of the stairs also obscures the end, highlighting how often we can be blinded by the goal we wish to reach or the end of our suffering that we can’t see the true journey we must embark on. This results in prolonged suffering as our longing for the light leads us into a desperation where the journey becomes almost unbearable because we have not adequately prepared for the true toll it will take on us, and the expectations we should have for the journey.