We're all individuals on this planet

The piece I submitted emerged as a sketch from a creative enquiry focus group , and it highlights the possibility that can arise from the shared space between a patient and a doctor that can only be achieved if both are willing to unmask themselves, and accept each others humanity. This has been difficult to do during the pandemic, as it seems that the telephone consultations put a mask in front of us whether we want to or not. The image acts as a hopeful metaphor to what we need to keep reminding ourselves of, especially once the world allows us to get back to clinics, unmasked.

I was introduced to the concept of flourishing for the first time during a creative enquiry course at QMUL and it provided meaningful answers to the dislike I have had for the linking of resilience to everything in medical education. The conversation around this topic showed me that there is a better way to go forwards in my life and I don't have to bounce back from every hard experience like I had permanent springs under my shoes- they are not permanent and they get rusty easily. The journey towards flourishing allows me to take painful experiences with me, explore them through creative enquiry, and accept them as part of me rather than as flaws I would like to exclude from my life. In this way the sketch also acts as a metaphor of the connection that emerges when I approach my past and future self with more kindness.

With this piece I hope to create a feeling of connection that can exist among individuality, a feeling of being in the same boat and working together towards a solution to a shared problem. This is what I keep in my mind when I look at my sketch, and I hope to reflect this in my personal practice of medicine.