Breanna met her community partner, Mr. G, through Project FEED, a program that partners with dietetic interns at NC Central University and works with patients with food insecurity and/or malnutrition-related diseases. Breanna’s watercolor painting series depicts Mr. G’s journey through his illness with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. The first painting depicts Mr. G’s life before his illness. He was a chef in New Jersey and did not regulate his diet. The young boy present in all three paintings represents Mr. G’s grandson, the most important person in his life. They are eating sweets and laughing as they are enjoying a happy, sunny day together. The second painting takes place several years after Mr. G’s diagnosis of diabetes. This is when I met him. He has made efforts to eat a healthier diet and has therefore lost a significant amount of weight. However, he still hasn’t been able to stay in complete control of his diet, and as a result, he has developed a limp and now needs a cane. He also had to quit his job as a chef and move in with his brother in North Carolina. Although the weather turned more gloomy, the silver lining is that he gets to see his grandson more frequently. Here they are seen doing one of their favorite activities – watching the fish in his brother’s fish tank. Despite his hardships, Mr. G maintains a positive attitude and is motivated to make changes in his life in order to live longer for his grandson. The third painting depicts Mr. G after an episode of extremely high glucose levels that led to him developing an infection in his leg and undergoing an emergency amputation. This is a real wake up call to the reality of the situation for Mr. G and he is depicted holding his grandson closer than ever as he vows to make significant changes in the control of his diet that could mean the difference between life and death.
About the Artist: Breanna Polascik
Breanna Polascik is a rising second year medical student from Chapel Hill, NC. She has enjoyed learning about the various specialties and plans to go into second year approaching every specialty with an open mind. Outside of medicine, she enjoys tap dancing, playing piano, outdoor activities, and fitness. Over the years, she has been able to combine her interests in the arts and medicine in endeavors such as studying the forces generated while tap dancing to understand risk of injury for professional and recreational dancers and implementing perioperative music therapy to help improve patients’ experiences and recovery. Through this work, she has witnessed the immense benefit that combining the arts with medicine can have on patients. She is grateful that she can continue exploring the relationship between art and medicine through SCOPES.
