Our Lives in their Hands

Staged on a papier mâché arm, its hand outstretched, this miniature scene represents the responsibility of the doctor within the community and the potential for the effects of these encounters to reach out beyond the patient themselves. The palm holds the hospital bay, where a sick patient receives their diagnosis and management plan from a majority-female medical team (depicted in green and blue healthcare hues). Whilst this interaction is at the very heart of the impact, shouldered in tandem by the patient and practitioners, this is but the beginning of the story. At the wrist, two doors, slightly ajar, separate this scene from a watching woman, the loved one of the patient. Whilst one degree removed from the patient's acute illness, she is deeply affected by it, although she does not experience and understand it as fully as those within. Progressing backwards, the arm is the busy hospital corridor, with each individual symbolising a different level of proximity to illness and medicine, and their potential impact on one's life. Everyone's lives are touched, whether they realise it or not, from those with ongoing chronic conditions that can be disabling (as depicted by the man in pink), to those who believe themselves to be healthy and distanced from the medical institution (like the gentleman with his back turned, leaving the building). Some remain in healthcare limbo, suffering from symptoms they do not understand, waiting for a diagnosis, an appointment, slipping through the cracks. The simplistic nature of the piece attempts to pierce through to this unifying, bare-faced truth: in sickness and in health, directly or by association, all our lives intersect with medicine.

Women historically and through to the modern day are more likely to struggle to advocate medically for themselves in consultations and often their concerns are more likely to go unheard, despite growing emphasis on patient autonomy, contributing to the gender health gap. On the practitioner side, whilst there is now ample opportunity for women to join surgical specialties, studies consistently show that female surgical trainees tend to be offered less autonomy, even when adjusted for confounders like trainee experience and procedure difficulty. Despite these gender biases, today the patients of female surgeons tend to have shorter hospital stays, are readmitted less, and even have lower rates of mortality, perhaps a result of lingering hesitancy and caution turning into a tendency to be beneficially more risk aversive. This painting simultaneously reflects these barriers that have in some ways been overcome, yet in other ways remain, localising the hand as conveying the ability to seize this autonomy and humanising the patients and practitioners affected by these biases.