10 Minutes
Lydia Wells
The message in this animation revolves around the clock on the wall. As the doctor asks the questions and the patient gives information the clock increases in size as the minute-hand moves towards the 2 – indicating 10 x minutes. The red colour of the clock is showing alarm as if ‘entering the danger zone’ – red having ‘stop’ symbolism as it is shows the consultation is running out of time. This highlights the fact that this GP is confined within a 10 x minute consultation window to find out – not just enough information to form a diagnosis – but also enough information to understand what is important to the patient, what their ideas, concerns and expectations are….
The thought bubbles increase as the consultation continues, highlighting the things left unsaid by the end of the consultation. This piece aims to highlight the pressure of this time-limit and aims to emphasise the struggle for both patient and doctor as they wish to continue talking and exploring.
This piece was inspired by the remote tele-consultations we observed during our GP placements.I decided to create this animation in a black, ink-drawing style with only the additional red of the clock to focus the attention on the time passing.This piece of work was completed using Procreate drawing application on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.
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Effective Consulting, Year Two, 2021
I really enjoyed this piece and feel that it portrays, in an emotive way, the problems around the constraints of the 10 minute appointment time afforded to GP’s, in respect of patient consultations. When watching the animation, I tried to read everything that the doctor and patient were saying and thinking, but as time progressed this became impossible, creating a sense of being overwhelmed with the amount of information needing to be discussed and considered. I was also acutely aware of the impending time deadline as the animation advanced, creating feelings of stress and anxiety, along with a sense of disappointment and frustration at the end. The consultation felt rushed and ineffective with both parties clearly wanting to continue, as the GP struggled to obtain enough information, and the patient struggled to ascertain what information was relevant and should be disclosed to the doctor within the limited time available.
The first thing I noticed about this piece is the simplicity of the art style, and I realised as I watched the animation that this works really well to convey the fact that 10 minutes is barely enough to cover the tip of the iceberg of a patient’s issue. The speech bubbles with the signposting (e.g. red flag symptoms, family history) and the doctor’s questions asked in rapid succession made me aware of how formulaic and rushed consultations can be when constrained by a such a short time frame. The gradual increase in the number of speech bubbles followed by a single speech bubble at the end was anti-climactic and gave me a sense of how underwhelmed the patient must feel after hoping to gain more information and reassurance from the consultation.
I personally think that having only 10 minutes to conduct a full GP consultation can put a huge amount of stress on both the GP and the patient. This animation illustrates this very clearly, as the consultation progresses, there becomes more and more things that are not being addressed, however before any of these issues can be resolved, the GP runs out of time for the consultation and brings it to an end. This implies that both the patient and doctor go away from the consultation dissatisfied. This illustrates a key issue with GP consultations at the moment, and puts it into an easy to understand and hard hitting message.
I really liked the animation highlighting the 10 minute consultations in GP practices in the UK. It reflects accurately on the daily struggles that GPs have to face in order to reach a diagnosis and a plan for the patient by the end of each consultation. I thought the clock idea on the top right of the animation was very creative as well. The increasing number of speech bubbles as the animation goes on depicts the comments the patient wants to mention but does not have the time to whilst the GP is focused on asking his/her list of questions in order to come to a diagnosis. The message in this animation is very clear and relevant today.
I think that this short animation did very well to capture the pressures that both doctors and patients are under whilst working within the ten minute GP appointment times. It accurately reflects the worries of the patient, and how even with the methodical list of questions used by the GP to form a diagnosis, they were realistically only able to touch the tip of the iceberg in terms of the patients problems. As the animation went on the patient seemed to have more and more thoughts, including worries which went unaddressed by the GP such as what other family members had suggested, what symptoms would be relevant to the GP when making their diagnosis – i.e. symptoms that perhaps had been left out – and how the diagnosis which the GP gave would impact their daily lives. The patient clearly ended the appointment with many unanswered questions, but for one reason or another (perhaps not wanting to take up too much time, or even due to more paternalistic aspects of the doctor patient relationship) politely thanked the doctor at the end of the appointment without raising any of their concerns. I think the growing intensity of both the colour and size of the clock fairly represent a highly time pressured situation for both doctor and patient. With the NHS under strain from a lack of funding and resources, as well as an overwhelming number of people to care for due to an aging population in the UK, the film portrays a very relevant and modern set of dilemmas within general practice currently.
I love how this piece acts out the relationship between the pressure placed on the health system; showing how procedural time constraints affect practitioners and patients’ experiences of consultations.
Under this pressure, the practitioner can no longer spare the time to even attempt to understand the complexity of the patients condition, but has to ration what little time they have so that the consultation is diminished to an automated and industrially streamlined process. This can be seen as we look at the practitioners view and notice that the only objects in in their periphery are patient, their ‘tick-box’ assessment, the clock and the door.
As the perspective pans away from that of the practitioner, we are made aware of both the patients and the practitioners growing concerns and worries, which could be relived if it were not for the burning clock on the wall.