For DaDaFest International, we commissioned a cross-artform, spoken word piece from Helen Seymour about dynamics between doctors and patients. Here's a blog from Seymour about her experience making it.
I slightly clench my jaw every time I see Adam Kay’s name, and this is probably an over-reaction. I’m working on it. I bet he’s a lovely man. He had an incredibly traumatic, sleep deprived, under-supported time as a doctor and his book, “This is Going Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor” became a best-seller for it’s honest and heart-breaking account of his time working in the NHS. I do…just…really wish…he hadn’t started the book by declaring he was giving the patients mentioned “the names of minor Harry Potter characters” for the sake of anonymity. I know what you’re thinking – come on Helen, it’s just a joke – but it’s a tone that carries on throughout the book, and it gets to me because as someone who has been a patient, under one hospital or another throughout my life. I often wonder if the doctor’s I’m seeing realise that I’ve been having an incredibly traumatic, sleep deprived, under-supported time too. I wonder if they see me as just a minor character in their day. That’s not a nice way to feel when you’re trying to explain symptoms that are plaguing your life, or trying to get a referral somewhere, or more information about a new diagnosis, or are having tests or…or…or… Please, Adam. Do a re-print and throw in a few more Dumbledores.
The theme of DadaFest this year is Translations, and so I was keen to explore what words might be getting lost in appointment rooms. Is there a way for doctors and patients to communicate more effectively? The trouble at the moment, is that I don’t think the voices of patients and doctors are getting heard equally. It was this feeling of unbalance, of a lot of doctors and nurses publishing books about their experience without patients getting a platform to respond, that lead me to want to make First Do No Harm, a short poetry film about patient experience. I was actually pretty nervous about the prospect, because I didn’t want to be seen as having a massive go at all the people who make up the genuinely incredible NHS. But I did feel that the voices of patient deserved to be heard, and that maybe this could be the start of conversation to make both the lives of patients and doctors much, much better.
I wanted to reach out beyond my own experience, so I teamed up with the brilliant Drawn Poorly (Instagram: @drawnpoorlyzine) to do some research into how chronically ill/disabled folk felt about interacting with doctors. We got an amazing response to our call out and I can’t thank everyone who responded enough. It was quite emotional for me reading the responses to the questionnaire, because for the first time, I knew, without question, that I wasn’t alone in my experience of feeling unheard. Of feeling nervous before and after appointments. Of wanting things to be a lot easier and a lot less tiring.
The answers people gave to our questions (e.g. “How do you find the experience of communicating with medical staff?” And “In general, what do you think Doctors think of patients? Why?”) inspired the poem I wrote for the film. I also created a soundscape, with mentoring support from the brilliant Gabriel Jones, and filmed visuals that speak of my personal experience as a patient with a disability. The result is a short film that aims to raise the voices of patients and searches for new beginnings in communication. It is, in the grand scheme of things, a very small start, but I’m optimistic it will encourage a more open, balanced conversation about these things. I believe we can improve things for everyone who finds themselves moving down another long hospital corridor, wondering if they’re heading the right direction.
With huge thanks to Apples and Snakes for supporting this project, Rose Sergent at Drawn Poorly zine, everyone who responded to our questionnaire, and of course DadaFest for the platform and opportunity to make and share my work.
First Do No Harm will be available to view on our website from 7:30pm 29 November as part of DaDaFest International 2020: Translations. Watch it here, and sign up to our newsletter for more updates and artist blogs:
https://www.dadafest.co.uk/event/first-do-no-harm1