A Spotlight on the Medical Humanities: Through a Patient’s Eyes

When I started medical school, I don’t think I realized how much my background as an artist would impact my identity as a medical student and future clinician. I remember being incredibly excited to discover the medical humanities concentration during my first year, because it felt like the perfect integration of the areas of my life that I was most passionate about.

I knew right away that I wanted to create a fine arts-based capstone project. I went through several ideas and iterations before finally developing the concept that I wanted to pursue. I think the process took longer for me because I needed to have some real clinical experience working with patients in various settings to realize how much I cared about humanism, empathy in medicine, and caring for patients holistically, considering the impact of illness on all areas of life. This realization led me to create a capstone project that utilized visual art as a tool to explore the human condition within the context of illness and medical treatment. In other words, I wanted to use art as a lens to help viewers remember the person behind the diagnosis.

I wanted to use art as a lens to help viewers remember the person behind the diagnosis.

My final project, titled, “Through a Patient’s Eyes” consists of a series of oil paintings, each accompanied by a written story and reflection activity for viewers, depicting one patient’s journey through the diagnosis of, treatment of, and recovery from cancer.

The process of creating this project was hugely impactful for me. Interviewing my participant was incredibly moving, and I felt truly privileged to hear her internal experiences as she reflected on her cancer journey. She shared her deepest fears, her darkest, most painful moments, her instances of joy and hope, her sources of inspiration, and the ways that she felt cancer changed her and changed the landscape of her life.

Given that I am going into family medicine, I thought about her story mostly from the perspective of a primary care physician. The things she shared made me consider how the emotional, psychological, and social repercussions of life-altering illnesses like cancer are often some of the greatest challenges that patients face, both during and after their actual illness. I think that this experience will certainly inform the ways that I think about, interact with, and show empathy and compassion for my future patients, and I hope that the students who interact with this project will also come away with similar reflections to apply to the care of their own patients in the future.

Experience the story and reflection activity

Learn more about the project on Quinnipiac Today