Congratulations to PhD student, Sarah Marie Graye, for winning the Kent Researchers’ Showcase Academic Panel Award 2021 in the category of Research Creative for her short film Ill But Invisible: When Doctors Are No Longer Interested.
The film, which premiered at The Northern Network for Medical Humanities Congress 2021 in April, looks at the link between chronic illness and identity, and examines the value of “being seen”.
Sarah Marie, who suffers from idiopathic emphysema, explains, “Modern medicine focuses on fixing people, and many of us with chronic conditions can’t be fixed. It means the medical profession isn’t interested in us and we become invisible to them.”
“Our identities are intrinsically tied to our health and wellbeing. But many of us who receive a chronic diagnosis don’t get the opportunity to explore how this impacts our lives and ourselves because the medical profession has walked away.
“I am a candidate on the Contemporary Novel: Practice as Research PhD and both my research and my novel are exploring how physical illness impacts both identity and mental health.”