«  
  »

A time to reflect





I have spent the past week enjoying one of London’s most exclusive views. I have lived in this city for many years and have become so used to the river and her surroundings that sometimes I almost forget quite how breathtaking they can be. Over the past week I have quite literally watched the world’s time go by as I have gazed at Big Ben from my hospital bed. Towards the end of the week, I convinced the nurses (easily) and my mother (with some difficulty) to allow me to take short walks outside.



My mother is used to my enthusiasm for taking pictures of the same scene over and over from slightly different perspectives in the search for the perfect shot. In less indulgent moments she compares my complete saturation with the task to my father, an artist, and his disregard for anything else when absorbed in a picture. That said, she was surprised and in fact rendered speechless when she discovered that I had “smuggled” my compact point and shoot camera into the hospital. Grumbling mothers aside, (and forgetting also the iv stand which is something of a handicap, even when using a tiny point and shoot), those brief excursions to the river bank (still within the hospital grounds – just!) were something to look forward to every day.



As a doctor, I am intimately familiar with the daily routines and rituals of ward life. There is something unsettling though about being on the patient-end of these encounters, and I did not like one bit that feeling of not being in complete control of my own body. The nurses and doctors looking after me were attentive and sincere and the medical students polite and curious (and shy!) But the sense of disempowerment remains and I am left wondering if my own patients feel this way and if there is anything I can do to change this.

In between the ward rounds, drug rounds, observations rounds, tea-trolley rounds and all the other seemingly endless stop-offs at my bed, I was free to prowl around the ward. One thing I noticed immediately was the art work on the walls. Hospital art always interests me. In several hospitals I have worked in there are exhibitions featuring local artists. The work is often for sale and is frequently rotated. It is also almost always in a public place, for example corridors or near the canteen. I enjoy looking at these pictures and have discovered many local artists this way. Art work on the wards is another matter, and I can’t remember having seen anything particularly inspiring on the walls of the wards before. This is a shame, because whilst the corridors and canteen are areas where pictures can be seen by many people, in-patients are almost always on the wards and do not have the luxury of enjoying theses pieces of work. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to discover several large multimedia pieces based on the history of the hospital by London artist Natasha Kerr displayed on my ward.



This picture is a photograph I took of the central panel of one of Natasha’s pictures (she has kindly agreed for me to post it!). The original photograph came from the London Metropolitan archive and shows patients “taking the air” towards the end of the nineteenth century. This picture really made me smile because the best part of each day was when I was allowed outside to get some fresh air! That said, I was glad that patients’ beds were no longer wheeled on to the southbank to take the air; it was pretty cold last week! I was struck by how the view across the river has remained constant since that photograph was taken. If you look at my pictures you can see that the lamp-posts are the same. The old photograph looks across the river towards Westminster and you can see the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Bridge as the perspective is angled slightly to the East. My pictures are almost all angled to the West because there was an unsightly big white van parked by the edge of the Thames Walk (the path) which obscured the view towards the East. I stood with it behind me for the last picture, of Westminster Bridge.



To see all of Natasha’s picture, visit her website and select “bespoke,” then “commissioned work,” and then “public.” The picture on my ward can be seen by selecting the third thumbnail.

Weekend Reflections

Monochrome Weekly

Shadow Shot Sunday

January 23rd, 2010 | Tags: | Category: Pictures

49 comments to A time to reflect

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

CommentLuv Enabled

You can add a link to follow you on twitter if you put your username in this box.
Only needs to be added once (unless you change your username). No http or @ Twitter