"River Cells" © by Paula Crawford
The most recent addition to the Clinical Center’s permanent art collection-a program to enhance the patient experience-comes from one of the target audience.
River Cells is an oil painting by former patient Paula Crawford, an associate professor of painting at George Mason University who has exhibited nationally and internationally.
“I’ve been an artist most of my adult life,” Crawford said. “That is what I’ve gotten up in the morning to do everyday.”
Some of those days were spent in the CC to participate in a protocol under Dr. Y aron Rotman from the Liver Diseases Branch of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for treatment of chronic Hepatitis C. Crawford cited a contaminated gamma globulin shot received before a trip to Mexico as the probable source of her infection.
Despite the taxing treatment regime, Crawford said, “I had the best medical care that I have ever experienced in my life … Everywhere at the Clinical Center-the liver clinic, phlebotomy, and elsewhere-! encountered a rare and unparalleled combination of organization, competence, and kindness.”
While around the building, her artist’s eye noticed the aesthetics. “The care to the physical building coupled with that of the doctors and staff become critical to a kind of total experience the patient receives.”
To add to the CC’s collection, Crawford painted River Cells in a few months. “I was trying to make a painting that both felt like watching river stones beneath rushing water (outside landscape), but also somewhat like looking through a microscope (interior landscape),” she said. The piece will hang in the Hatfield Building’s seventh floor breezeway.
“I hope that the art work inspires patients and co-workers the way Paula’s courage and determination inspired me,” Rotman said.