HEALTH, IN AND THROUGH EMPATHIC IMAGINARIES | Sarah Dobrowolski
© Health, In and Through Empathic Imaginaries | Sarah Dobrowolski
Pysanky is a traditional Ukrainian art form that symbolizes life and rebirth, created by ‘writing’ symbolic designs with beeswax onto eggshell surfaces between layers of colored dye.
Photo by Bruno Vompean
Health fundamentally requires peace to flourish. During this moment of increased global conflict, health professionals are called to reflect on how we contribute to peace, and thus health more broadly speaking. Given that peace is rooted in empathic relations, we must consider — how might health professionals better create and hold the requisite space needed to nurture empathy, and thus peace moving forward? The image portrays a pysanka inscribed with interlocking white circles that represent empathy, and fish that represent health. The eggshell and its design hold an empty yet full-of-potential space primed for creation. Moreover, the hours spent creating this pysanka offered the contemplative space to consider how I might better foster empathy through my everyday inter/actions as a medical learner, practitioner and person.
Sarah Dobrowolski is a second generation Ukrainian-Canadian with otherwise Acadian roots. She has a PhD in Health Promotion and is now completing her residency training in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at Queen’s University in Kingston ON, Canada. Overall, she subscribes to a critical qualitative research paradigm, and is drawn to participatory, narrative, and arts-based methods that critically examine and act upon the intersection of health promotion and rehabilitation.
