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Fractionis
Panis 2015
Giclee print on Hahnemuhle Pearl 56 x 36cm
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By Emma Barnard
The invitation came to become a member of the AERG through my involvement on the Arts and Ethics Subcommittee for the World Congress in Bioethics held in Edinburgh in 2016. My artwork fits within the CT1 group - Approaches to Understanding Patient Experiences and Medical Texts
The invitation came to become a member of the AERG through my involvement on the Arts and Ethics Subcommittee for the World Congress in Bioethics held in Edinburgh in 2016. My artwork fits within the CT1 group - Approaches to Understanding Patient Experiences and Medical Texts
‘Some doctors believe they have a duty to preserve
life at all costs. There is no such duty’.
Doctors
who play God
Dr Richard Nicholson
Guardian, 08/03/02
Collaborative work as an artist with
surgeons and their patients over several years has produced much artwork and
many questions. The issue that I wanted to focus upon for the work that I chose
to exhibit at the world congress and also for the AERG ‘Fieldworks’ exhibition
in Berlin is the notion that
medicine is becoming the new religion and more significantly, how the patient
views their surgeon as a miracle worker, a saviour figure. A large part of my
work as an artist working within medicine has involved spending time with
patients of Mr Mike Papesch FRACS and Mr Paul Stimpson FRCS ENT Consultant
Surgeons who specialise in head and neck cancers.
After observation of
the consultation I invite the patient into another consulting room where we
discuss their experience as a patient. Here they are free to express their
thoughts and feelings about being in the medical environment, a particularly
vulnerable time for them. On their printed photographic portrait often they
write just one word eg ‘surreal’, ‘routine’ or perhaps an illustration of how
they feel eg a drawing of a boiling kettle, this work is dependant upon their individual
experience. Repeatedly I have witnessed them discussing and illustrating on
their portrait their thoughts of the surgeon as ‘a miracle worker, a saviour
figure’. When facing a potential life limiting disease surgeons have been
gifted the power to prolong life. This situation is exacerbated when a person
has no faith and time on earth is all that they can hope for, naturally they desire
to extend this time. In the main and due to many reasons, the patient has a
passive part in the relationship dynamics and displays much reverence to the
consultant who holds the power to heal.
When investigating how
this relationship might be visualised I explored the Catholic faith for the
similarities with the ritualistic nature of both. Very little appears to be written
on this subject but here I reference journalist Oliver Clerc’s book ‘Modern
Medicine: The New World Religion, in it he raises some really interesting
points such as:
‘Medicine has become the religion of modern
times. Since Louis Pasteur, the deep Christian founder of modern day medicine
and father of vaccines, the beliefs and practices of traditional Christianity
have been transferred into medicine: physicians have taken the place of
priests; the search for health replaces the quest for salvation; the hope of
physical immortality (through cryonnisation, cloning and genetic manipulation)
will soon take over hope of eternal life; vaccination plays the same initiatory
role as baptism; and a hypothetical universal vaccine shall save all mankind
from illness, tomorrow, just as the Saviour atoned for the sins of the world’.
In the Middle Ages, doctors blamed amongst other things, sin for ill
health and subsequent cures involved prayer.
The intention of my work for the AERG is to highlight this phenomenon of
projection and transfer of religious content that takes place within medicine.
Dr
Nicholson R. Doctors
who play God
Clerc O. (2014), Modern Medicine; The New
World Religion, America, Personhood Press (back cover)
Bio
Emma Barnard is a
visual artist specialising in lens based media and inter-disciplinary practice
and research within Fine Art and Medicine. Her work deals with
social commentary, seeking to highlight contemporary issues and
encourage debate surrounding them.
Her "Patient As Paper" (co-founded with Mr Mike Papesch
FRACS, consultant ENT surgeon) artwork is currently being exhibited
widely in galleries, universities and hospitals in England and
internationally. It has been presented at several conferences
within the medical and medical humanities fields, and most
recently at University College London, Medical School and in
a series of presentations at Surrey University for the
Department of Health Sciences. The experience Emma has
gained through several years of working with consultant surgeons
and their patients from various disciplines, including ENT and
Psychodermatology, is now influencing the field of medical education. At
King's Medical School in London Emma has led a highly successful pilot
project to introduce art into medical education, undertaken in
conjunction with a critical care consultant and a 4th yr. medical student.
Most recently she has taught on a pilot project within the Department
of Medical and Health Sciences at Surrey University and has led on
workshops for students on the MBBS Stage 2 GP Longitudinal Placement, GKT
School of Medical Education.