From the editor: The patient care experience on full display

Art exhibits can promote a visceral reaction. The one that just opened along a hallway of windows on Thomas Jefferson University’s health sciences campus certainly does just that. 

The installation includes five hospital beds, life-sized mannequins inside large pill bottles, personal possessions and deeply personal quotes from five unnamed people who’ve gone through life-threatening trauma — a miscarriage, a pulmonary embolism, a wait for a kidney transplant, a case of undiagnosed paralysis and cancer. The Philadelphia artist behind the exhibit, Pepón Osorio, is the cancer patient.

“Convalescence” is a complex and compelling exhibit of patient pain, reliance on drugs and inequitable care — part of the patient experience that can get lost in the daily tussle between providers and payers. “It is a critique of the healthcare system,” Megan Voeller, director of health humanities at the university, told me.

It was a bold decision for the university to host the exhibit, which through Nov. 1 will be used as a teaching tool for students pursing healthcare careers. 

“Often the role of art is to beautify,” Voeller said. “But art can also provide a more clinical function, to diagnose social problems that need addressing.”