On the frontline
When not taking photographs, usually somewhere on the side of a mountain, I have spent much of the past 15 years as a consultant in intensive care medicine at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, Wales. Medicine and photography have a surprising number of things in common. Both blend art and science, and the ability to see clearly is as fundamental for success in medicine as it is in photography. Throughout history, doctors have used visual clues to aid in diagnosis: observing the facial expression and altered gait of a patient might point a neurologist to a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease while a subtle skin rash may be the first harbinger of potentially fatal meningitis and sepsis. In medicine, just as in photography, if you do not look with an open mind you will only see what you are expecting to see and risk missing what is important.
Unavoidably, my life at the hospital this year has been dominated by COVID-19. It already feels as though it was in another lifetime, but a year ago the world had never heard of the virus that has so radically reshaped the way in which we live, not only in
