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The incurable optimist cuts through to a somewhat desensitised heart

Posted on 28. Jun, 2010 by NW1er in News

Art is often used in healthcare communications to engage patients and those close to them to about health conditions. Quite often, we humans find it easier to show our emotions in a non-verbal form. Over the last two decades, members of the Aurora team have put exhibitions on at the Serpentine Gallery in London and presented patient artwork at many congresses, for example. The result of this has been desensitisation for your author – this type of approach tends not to engage me as I feel it has been saturated. So I found myself surprised when the poster below in Camden tube triggered an emotional response in me:

This poster promotes the activities of Patrick, an artist with motor neurone disease (MND). Perhaps I responded to this because I have been spending the majority of my working time for the last year deep in the area of neurology – Patrick’s project to paint 100 portraits before his MND makes this impossible hit a cord. Degenerative conditions are so immensely cruel – slowly stripping away things most of us take for granted, and sitting over patients’ heads like ticking time bombs that could go off at any moment. The campaign, “The incurable optimist” is driven by the Motor Neurone Disease Association. As explained on the campaign’s online hub, Patrick is, “ [I am] determined to use what’s left of my life and my diminishing artistic skill to encourage others to do something optimistic every day. MND may be incurable but I am an incurable optimist. I know that through optimism we will find the cure to MND.”

The paintings on the tube poster featured Patrick’s neurologist, his carer, the person from the local shop etc. – highlighting all of the people that touch Partick’s life. We all take our “day to day” contacts for granted – the man who sells us Diet Coke each day, the lady in Prêt, the man at the tube – perhaps we should say “hello” and “thank you” to these people more often. Patrick’s work has made me think about such things more positively.

I met with a neurology nurse the other week and he was telling me about some of his patients who really struggle with the delivery method for their treatment – having to self-inject frequently. For those people who are needle-phobic (to some extent or another), the frequent psychological-upset of having to take needle to skin is tortuous. Imagine how you would feel if you found yourself in this predicament – having to decide whether to take a treatment you find unbearable to delay your timebomb, or risk going untreated to avoid the issues of injecting. It’s not until we understand feelings, emotions and issues like these that we as healthcare communicators can develop any kind of meaningful material for people living with conditions, or those who support them.

In terms of a communications campaign, I think the “incurable optimist” is amazingly put together – click around the site and see for yourself. But I’m not writing this post with a marketing-communications hat on, I am writing it from a purely personal perspective – and Patrick has moved me. What an amazing man.

Tags: campaigns we love, disease awareness