2 - Uncertainty in Medicine: Looking with Uncertainty with Alexa Miller
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What is the purpose of the “image circle” exercise and how does it start the episode?
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Welcome. It is so
great to see you guys. This is Alexa Miller, our uncertainty correspondent.
What we're going to do today is look closely at some works of art that were selected by a group of medical students I was recently working with.
She's the first guest for our Uncertainty Profile series as part of Uncertainty in Medicine.
This is one of my favorite exercises. It's called an image circle.
Alexa has been working for over 20 years as an educator at the intersection of diagnosis, visual art, and uncertainty competence in medicine.
Where students first write about the experience of uncertainty as a patient, and then they select an image that to speak to what they most want others to know about patient uncertainty.
We recently got to sit down as a team and get a taste of one of Alexa's classes.
And then we talked about what is actually visible in the works of art that speaks to those pearls of wisdom.
Alexa shared a few of the images that her students chose to share with us. We'll hear more from Alexa in a minute. But first, step inside Alexa's classroom.
There's a couple I thought you guys in particular would like.
Yeah, the first one drew me as the one I was drawn to.
Yeah.
This is Sam, producer and editor at The Nocturnist. Spoiler, the painting is The Lovers 2 by Renée Magritte. But Alexa didn't tell us that. She just asked Sam to describe it.
So it is two figures, seemingly a man and a woman, based on their clothing, which is the man is wearing a suit, the woman is wearing what looks to be a sleeveless dress, and they're kissing. But what's interesting is they both have what looked to be bed sheets wrapped around their heads. So you can't actually see the features of their face, but they're still embracing and still kissing. They're in sort of what looks like a domestic room with a red wall on one side, but the background kind of looks like a cloudy sky or just like an abstract non-interior space. So it's sort of abstract or surreal. There's something sinister or maybe like dystopic sense.
Yeah. Awesome. So you're pointing out the really sort of generalized...
When Alexa paraphrases what you just said, you can tell she's been doing this for a long time. She makes you sound like a creative genius and then pushes you to dig further. Why does what you see lead you to say that? How is your interpretation related to your observation?
I think commonly when you see people with sheets over their head, they've either been kidnapped or they're being interrogated. It's that kind of thing where you're seeing control being exerted over someone.
Yeah, I think one of the things when I look at
this... This is Molly, head of story development.
begs the question of what's happening outside the frame. Because there's something about this painting also that almost feels as if it zoomed in on the figures. We only see them from their shoulders up.
This is an exercise Alexa has done with medical students for years now. And once you get into it, it's not hard to see why. The type of close observation it encourages is the exact same thing clinicians do all day long. Paying attention to detail and grounding your interpretation in the evidence in front of you.
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Chapters
3 chapters
1
What is the purpose of the “image circle” exercise and how does it start the episode?
0:00–4:54
2
How do the students interpret Renée Magritte’s *The Lovers 2* and what does it reveal about patient uncertainty?
4:54–12:18
3
Why does Alexa say looking at art is the same as clinical observation?
12:18–20:29