Olena Shved

My main field of activity for the last 20 years was medicine. So, the theme, I was always reflected on, is inner experience of person working in extremal medicine, where daily work is connected to human suffering, pain and death as well as risk and high responsibility. This topic had not been widely discussed until pandemia COVID -19 focused peoples' attention on medical problems.

This inspired me to create «Behind the Red Line» series, which is dedicated to the work in operating block, closed object, which entrance is marked by the Red Line. Anyone who crosses this line, whether he is a patient or a doctor, falls into the zone of inner anxiety, emotional and physical tension. Everything happening here resembles a theatrical scene, where all the characters perform allotted roles. My aim was to open the veil to the "operation theater" and convey the specific atmosphere of the place, where doctor and patient walk together along the fine line between health and illness, life and death.

All the pictures of the series have been taken directly during the surgical operations in 2018-2020 in clinics in Kiev (Ukraine), where I work as a surgeon.

My main field of activity for the last 20 years was medicine. Working at health care system with its irregular working hours, demanding pace, high responsibility level, physical and emotional overload, clinicians are often at high risk of burnout developing. Burnout syndrome is recognized by World Health Organization (WHO) as a long-term stress reaction marked by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a lack of sense of personal accomplishment. The winged Latin expression «Aliis inserviendo consumor» - «Consumed in the service of others» is still used by medical organizations, institutions and doctors personally as a slogan for their activity. The prevalence of burnout among clinicians is over 50%. It leads to higher rates of depression, alcoholism, drug use and even suicide among healthcare professionals. The danger lies also in the fact that physicians who suffer from burnout are more disposed to errors. Experts all over the world agree that incidences of physician burnout are greatly underreported. My personal experience of fighting against burnout syndrome pushed me to go deep into photography several years ago and create the series "The Eidetic of Burnout Syndrom".