Artist Description: This piece was inspired by a patient I had the privilege of working with. She presented with a severe headache and gave me the opportunity to perform the fundoscopic exam. The second I was able to visualize her retina, I was speechless and fearful. She had high-grade papilledema, severe enough to be immediately recognized by a learner like me. The patient unfortunately progressed to brain death secondary to cerebral edema and passed away. 

The focus of the piece is the optic disc – unpleasant and blurred with a dark and tortuous arcade emerging from the center. The disc is juxtaposed with the macula, which, while usually the culprit of vision loss due to AMD in my weekly retina clinic, is neat with a circular gradient in this patient. Charcoal was selected to execute this piece. The soft nature of the medium allowed me to grossly smudge the optic structures – intended to mirror how nothing about this patient’s prognosis was “tidy” or “routine”. The piece was illustrated in black and white to mirror the ominous feeling I was faced with as (in my mind) the worst-case scenario presented itself through the fundoscope. The rough, unsettling nature of this piece is intended to reflect the rapid change in a healthcare provider’s emotions as they perform the exam on a patient and diagnose a medical emergency.

Download a copy of Blurred Margins – Sarishka Desai

Bio: Sarishka Desai is currently a 4th year medical student at the University of Connecticut. She received her B.A. in Biology and Quantitative Social Sciences from Dartmouth College. Passionate about the intersection between advocacy, education, geography, and ophthalmology, she has published research on private equity in ophthalmology as well as regional trends in anti-VEGF expenditure. She plans on applying to ophthalmology in the 2025
residency cycle.