A Crucial Moment in Time
2022, Oil on Canvas, 16 X 20″, Online exhibit Art in the Time of Corona, Vol 3, at Dab Arts Co., Los Angeles. (https://bit.ly/3SoZ0o4)
This image depicts the crucial moment just before intubation. Note the patient’s facial expression: the widened eyes, the crinkled forehead, the alarmed grimace. She senses the urgency of the situation yet has no idea what is to happen. Will it hurt? Will she wake up again? She fears the unknown. Now, note the doctor’s hands: the wrinkled skin, the tense gesture, the tight grasp on the bag-valve mask. She has performed this procedure hundreds of times. But, she still tenses up. She thinks about what can go wrong: desaturation, equipment malfunction, aberrant anatomy. She has every idea of what will happen in the next moments. Instead of a fear of the unknown, she has a healthy understanding of the known. Although this crucial moment in time lasts just a few minutes, it is full of a wide range of emotions.
SAPANA ADHIKARI, MD 