Broken Machine
Madeleine Love
My piece “Not just a broken machine” is based on my thoughts about what a long-term in-patient’s attitudes may be towards their healthcare team. I could imagine being stuck in the same bed all day, seeing different unfamiliar faces pass by, constantly twisting valves or tapping numbers into monitors. I felt like you could eventually feel like you were “invisible” and were merely an object under observation. In my piece “ Not just a machine”, I have tried to capture this emotion. The engine represents the patient as a broken “puzzle”, I drew in what I would consider to be “personal items” around all the equipment, i.e. her slippers, cards and flowers. I felt this gave an element of humanity to the piece, reminding us once more that the patient is not just a broken object, but a person, with a favourite colour, a personality and a life story.
Whole Person Care, Year One, 2010
This is a really effective and moving piece, drawing on many of the experiences that must be encountered during palliative care or long periods of hospital stay. It compels you to always think about treating and caring for the person behind the patient, not just their illness.
I feel that this piece embraces the main point of Whole Person Care – to treat the patient as an individual, not just someone in hospital with a certain problem that needs fixing. Patients often feel like they are being treated as an object, and I feel this picture reminds us to treat them as a unique person and have a holistic approach to the care you give them.
This piece illustrated to me the importance of medicine being a display of humanity and not merely a perpetual conveyor belt of rectifying a patient’s disease but not considering the patient as a human being in their own right. I can only imagine that long term hospital stays can be dehumanising and patients may feel that they have lost their identity so this piece reinforced the need to not only treat the disease/injury that is presented before you but to consider the impact of the disease for patients and their family. The idea of the patient as a broken puzzle could also infer the necessity of holistic patient care and that treating the disease itself is only part of the puzzle in a patient returning to a state of good health. The perception of health is extremely subjective and good health constitutes not only the absence of disease but many other pieces to the puzzle such as psychological wellbeing and resilience. Only when all of these factors are incorporated into health care will the “puzzle” be solved and become whole as physical and psychological wellbeing are most certainly complementary and in isolation will not be as effective as when they are utilised alongside one another. Health care will forever be an intricate balance of being an effective professional, clinician and humanitarian.
I think that this piece brilliantly conveys the way in which care within hospitals in some ways may treat patients merely as bodies which must be fixed, with the ‘broken machine’ representing the patient who has been dehumanised during the process. It importantly shows that whilst this approach may solve the underlying problem, it goes against the basic morals and standards which any good doctor should uphold.
This piece really highlighted the issues regarding doctors so easily falling into the trap of seeing patients as ‘just another case’ throughout their day. By depicting the patient as a machine the artist delves into the patient’s thoughts and feelings as they are not treated as an individual by the healthcare professionals. The effects of this on a patient’s wellbeing and experience in a hospital can be severe, potentially causing more problems in the long term. The need for a more holistic approach to Medicine is highlighted in the piece in order to deliver a more well-rounded and comfortable experience for the patients.
I like this piece of art because it makes you understand how patients are all individual and despite their respective conditions, they should all be treated irrespective of each other. With the patient being portrayed as a machine, rather than a human, this shows how some patients may begin to feel dehumanised after a while of being in hospital, so we should always try to limit this by engaging with them whenever we can.
This piece particularly interested me as I think it really demonstrates and highlights how interlinked physical health and mental wellbeing are. This is increasingly important and relevant as mental health is such an important part of the healing process. The drawing is a clear reminder to all those involved in continuous health care that a patient should be treated as a human above all else. This can be achieved by using a holistic approach to medicine and actively involving the patient in their treatment.