Lindsey Davies: Q&A - Royal College of Physicians

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www.rcplondon.ac.uk/heritage
Re-framing disability
‘There is a real thing about mending people. I keep saying:
“I ain’t broke, you don’t need to fix me”’
These are the words of Jamie Beddard, a
disabled focus group participant, who took
part in our exhibition ‘Re-framing disability’.
The exhibition reflects the views of the 27
disabled participants, who came together
to discuss the College’s historical portraits
of disabled people and their identity as
disabled people. Discussions invariably
raised relationships with the medical
profession, both historically and today.
The historical print above is of 14-yearold
Sarah Hawkes, three years after she
received a blow to her neck which caused
her limbs to contract. Hawkes had been
a servant in Essex, but, no longer able to
earn her living, she came to London in
1831 to exhibit. It is unlikely that Hawkes
exhibited her naked body to the public –
this image was created for medical readers.
Hawkes was treated by Dr Edward Harrison
(1766–1838), who began his treatment
on 15 November 1831; by 29 November
1832 Hawkes was able to walk. In a letter
to surgeon Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie in
1836, Harrison wrote that he straightened
Hawkes’s backbone by means of massage,
splints, stretching and lying flat.
Penny Pepper, a focus group participant,
commented on the image: ‘It’s about
highlighting [Sarah Hawkes’s] deformity
with no conscious effort to remember the
human being. That’s [still] the approach
that medical photography takes, at least
in my childhood. Being naked in front
of a growth chart when you’re 10… just
how much that takes away from you as
an individual’.
The focus on cure, not understanding,
often resulted in unproductive relationships
between doctors and disabled people.
Partly as a result of this, the ‘social model
of disability’ was developed in the 1970s
by disability activists. This model rejects a
wholly medicalised definition of disability
and emphasises the need for society to
change and remove the barriers restricting
disabled people. Dr Thomas Wells, an
oncologist at Weston General Hospital
and paraplegic, co-founded the Bristol
University Medical School disability course
and gives an annual lecture to medical
students on how doctors should relate
to people with impairments. ‘[Being
disabled] has made me more aware of
the importance of a patient being given
an element of the decision making… A
big aspect of medical care isn’t always
about giving the medical treatment; it’s
about listening, making someone feel that
they’ve been heard.’
We would like to hear from medical
professionals who have a view on this issue
at heritage@rcplondon.ac.uk. ‘Re-framing
disability’ runs until 8 July 2011: www.
rcplondon.ac.uk/re-framing-disability. n
Bridget Telfer, RCP audience development
coordinator
www.rcplondon.ac.uk n June 2011 n Commentary 23