ARTISTS TALKING

# 47 [15 July 2010]

There are now fewer than 24 hours to go before the final deadline for the student essays, and a fortnight to go before our deadline for assessments: so, the end of the first year of the project is in sight.  No doubt much reflection & feedback will take place, and decisions will be made about including the Medical Humanities options in next year's SSCs.  From informal conversations last night at our end-of-module party, the students appear to have enjoyed themselves, and found the Humanities options useful as a whole. (Thanks to Lisetta for the excellent hospitality.  Once again, I forgot to take my camera, so no photographs.)

An interesting piece of information from the A.M.H. conference in Truro:  apparently, medical students who study Humanities as part of their course are more able to cope with "ambiguity" once they qualify as doctors.  I wonder how you measure ambiguity?  By definition, one would expect it to be a bit tricky to pin down - is a situation ambiguous, or isn't it?  Or is it?  or perhaps not?

# 46 [13 July 2010]

The last week begins:  the last two students are preparing for their deadline, and I am preparing my invoice for expenses.

I'm looking forward to seeing the sketchbooks, as I think they've been doing quite a bit of drawing in the anatomy department this time.  Curiously, although students have been filling their sketchbooks with lots of stuff, there hasn't actually been a lot of Anatomy done so far.  I suspect that, at one stage, the only person doing any of yer actual anatomical drawing was me.

# 45 [8 July 2010]

Back from the Association of Medical Humanities conference in Truro - I arrived home at 1.30 a.m., way past my usual bedtime.  The conference closed a bit earlier than I expected, so I shelved my original plan to stay an extra night and travel home in a leisurely fashion during the daylight.  Unfortunately the bus to the railway station was late, and I ended up starting my seven-and-a-half hour train journey at a quarter to five in the evening.  Add to that the hour and a quarter to get home from the station at this end.....it was actually beginning to get light by the time I finally got to bed.  I am too old for this!!

The conference, however, was a really interesting experience and a chance to meet a great diversity of folk from all over the world.  Conferences are often huge and rather lonely events:  no-one talks to you, and if you don't already know some of the delegates, you end up not talking to anybody for days.  At Truro, by contrast, everyone talked to everyone else all the time. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera so the only photograph I have is stuck on my mobile phone.

We presented our paper on setting up the Art & Anatomy SSCs to a small and polite audience in a session which also included presentations by Christine Borland and Lucy Lyons, so we were in distinguished company.

The highlight of the conference, for me, was the screening of David Cotterell's film "The Green Room", made during his residency with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Afghanistan.  The film was made in the Field Hospital as the surgical staff wait for an influx of wounded soldiers. Apparently calm & detached, it is charged with emotion and layers of meaning.  Superficially, one might think that nothing much is happening, just slow, almost choreographed movements to a soundtrack synthesised from unintelligible conversations and the sound of helicopter rotor blades.  In fact the suspense is palpable; the action is occurring elsewhere - either just out of shot or just out of focus at the back of the tent.  People move with deliberation, enhanced by the video technique: they are alert, anxious even, but prepared for tasks to which they have become accustomed.  At one moment, suddenly, someone laughs soundlessly and you realise that the tension has been released by a joke you can't hear. And, with unbearable poignancy, when a casualty does arrive and is wheeled to the back of the operating theatre, the surgical team still waiting for their patient turn slowly round to look, torn between concern for the new arrival and the anticipation of their own task. The claustrophic setting is not contextualised geographically or politically within the film (although this was done in detail during David Cotterell's lecture to the conference).  There is no overt ethical judgement:  we are asked to examine our own feelings about this particular situation and about warfare in general, and to reflect upon the paradox of healing in the context of conflict.

http://www.cotterrell.com

# 44 [24 June 2010]

The essays referred to on the last post (cue bugle music) have arrived and been marked.   The "portfolios" have been inspected and included in the assessment of "use of learning resources".  The last block has started, and the two new students are, I hope, up and running with their preliminary research - neuroanatomy imaging, and the work of Gunther von Hagens.  And hoorah! with three and a bit weeks to go, my University internet access has arrived.  Better late than never (I wonder how long it lasts for?)

And the best news is that our life model is better and back at work.

# 43 [18 June 2010]

A small disaster has struck (can you have such a thing as a small disaster?).  Having waited all day for two essays to be emailed to me, and beginning to think uncharitable thoughts about the non-emailers, I have discovered that the server I still use occasionally for medical-type emails has developed a glitch.  The error message reads:

"The xxxx e-mail service is temporarily unavailable. This may be due to a brief inter-server commmunication problem or a restart of services following system maintenance or upgrade." [ha ha... brief??? it's been off all day]

"The team will investigate the cause of this disruption and post an update if the outage [outage - good grief] is likely to be lengthy. Apologies for any inconvenience.  Further information may be available on the email update page." [it isn't] "Please click the back button of your browser to return to the previous page and try again in a few minutes."

So, an assessment of the use of illustration in educating the public about obesity, and a study of the work of Jenny Savile in relation to Body Dysmorphic Disorder, are floating about in the ether.  Fortunately I have a plan B, and another email address, but it is a bit irritating, to say the least.

It's now 10p.m., and still perfectly light outside, but a strange pink mist has descended.  I presume the rational explanation has something to do with a sudden drop in temperature, but have been watching Dr. Who on the iPlayer, and fear the worst.  An alien invasion is undoubtedly imminent, and I haven't marked those essays.

# 42 [17 June 2010]

Week 8 of 12.

The second block is about to finish, and the essays will be handed in on Friday.  Having marked them, I will also have the portfolios to assess, under the general heading "use of learning resources".  The marking proforma has one or two idiosyncracies:  everything is marked on a scale from 1 to 7, including Attendance.  A mark of 6 is in the "Honours" bracket, and 7 earns "Distinction".  One could fantasise about a student earning Honours for attendance, despite being hopeless at everything else.  Fortunately for the future of the Health Service, one or two other things are also taken into account (clinical competence, for example).

Our poor life model, who had a racking cough last week, was too ill to attend this week.  So, I modelled for a rather small class - although you will be relieved to know that I kept most of my clothes on.  As a consequence I am now totally exhausted, and seriously thinking of going to bed despite the glorious weather.

# 41 [11 June 2010]

We're now just over half way through the SSC block, and it's difficult to remember a time when I wasn't commuting weekly to the Medical School.  The journey is judged nicely - no need to get up too early; feed chickens, feed cats, water tomatoes, check email & set off with an hour to spare (time allotted for lunch).  Arrive at 1.31 and pay for parking permit - this is valid for 4 hours and as parking is free after 5.30 and the penalty for not paying up to that time is horrendous, I don't fancy running the risk of a large fine for the sake of a a couple of minutes.....it has been known to happen, and stories circulate of the death and destruction visited upon transgressors. 

Then into the Medical School for a cup of tea at the refreshment bar and thence to the tutorials.  Half an hour or so spare for reading, or another cup of tea, and then into the Life Class. 

This week, the School has been setting up for something variously referred to as OSSIs or OSCIs.  My reading of John le Carré novels suggested that Ossis were East Germans, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but somehow this didn't seem to be the right interpretation of the acronyms.  Turns out that it's what used to be known as "Clinicals", that is, examinations of students' clinical acumen using real patients.  Most of these "patients" are old hands, almost professionals, with a vast understanding of their medical conditions and a long experience of Clinicals.  They are often happy to drop broad hints about their diagnosis & treatment, although I did hear of one who replied persistently along the lines of "that's for you to find out".  The student endured this for an hour, and failed the exam.

Anyway, as a result of the OSSIs, all the examination couches had been removed from the room we use for life classes.  So: nowhere for the poor model to lie down.  But they had left us the chairs, so that was all right.

# 40 [28 May 2010]

The first block is over; the second begins.  Two students this time, who have already decided what they want to do. The life drawing session was better attended, which was a relief.  I am assured that other waifs and strays will return once exams are over.

Having finished my first set of marking, I was flattered to receive an email asking if I would care to "second-mark" essays selected for distinction/honours grades.  I then realised that the message was part of a group mailing, and probably not really, really intended for newbies like me.  But it was jolly nice to be asked - thank you, Sharon.  As it's the end of the month, I might also get paid.  Whoopee.  My only other paid employment this month has been a two-day demonstration of Iron Age textile techniques to 8-11 year olds on Anglesey.  That would probably have been a whole project blog on its' own if I'd had enough notice, but I stepped in at the last minute to help out, so, little preparation and few photographs.  And I can't really link it into the Anatomy & Art project; although, it might connect into the ideas of healing wells, and things hidden and revealed in the landscape.

# 39 [20 May 2010]

Another week, another round trip of umpteen miles, and another excellent life drawing session.  The attendance was down a bit this week (to put it mildly), but this is attributed to exams for 2nd year students, and essay deadlines for 3rd. year students.  One poor soul has had to expunge 1,500 words from a 3,000 word essay due to a misunderstanding by Someone in Authority about what counted towards the word count. (Not, I hasten to say, for an Anatomy & Art SSC.)

I am anticipating the receipt of the first essay (deadline tomorrow, 12midday) and will then have to get down to assessing it according to some pretty strict criteria.  This may not be Fun.....

# 38 [13 May 2010]

Another week passes.....

"My" student is full of good ideas, and I'm expecting a draft of the graphic medicine page any day now.

Numbers were down for the life class (have I frightened them away?  It's possible) but those who attended are improving so fast you can almost feel it.  We did the old exercise where you take 20 minutes to draw the whole model, take a fresh piece of paper & fold it into four equal sections (i.e. A1 down to A4), and then home in on a particular area of the model and draw that in one of the quarters.  Next, you focus down on a section of the same area and draw it to fill the next quarter. And so on until you end up with, say, a portion of a toe occupying the whole of the last A4 section.  A good way of learning all sorts of things including concentration.

After the break (no tea -  the vending machine was out of order), the drawings were stronger and more confident - a result, I think, of the intense looking practised in the first half of the session.