Pneumatic Retinopexy: Confronting Ocular Disease With Visual Art

Abstract

As part of a series of autobiographical case reports about physicians reporting on their own medical afflictions, a psychiatrist copes with a retinal detachment through an artistic collaboration with a medical student. The air bubble injected into the patient's eye shapeshifts during the six weeks of recovery and becomes the basis for a collaborative artistic project. The series of jointly created images becomes a source of comfort and solace for the patient and of developmental growth for the medical student becoming a physician.

Keywords: art; bipolar disorder type ii; medical illustration; pneumatic retinopexy; retinal detachment.