Patients by day, photos by … well.
Dr. Luis Garcia’s photo “Muddy Foot” won “Best in Class — Artistic Expression of Family Medicine” for the Visual Arts Competition at the 2015 Family Medicine Education Consortium Annual Meeting October 30 – November 1 in Danvers, Mass.
Here’s the background of the photo from his submission. Congrats Dr. Garcia!
In tropical northwestern Ecuador there is a small village located on an unnamed island that is surrounded by a lazy river. Needless to say it is only accessible by boat or canoe. Health care access is rare for these people, so we were able to take our medical mission and serve these people for two days.
As the parent of a toddler, I am amazed at how much we in our society and culture obsess over shoes. Children’s feet are constantly changing and there is always the issue of trying to keep the shoes on the feet of children who are eager to remove them at any given chance. Parents are often quick to spend extraordinary amounts of money on shoes that will only be worn for a few months. Needless to say, this is not the case in this village in Ecuador. Children ran freely without shoes, and on a rainy day their bare feet would trail mud wherever they went.
I think this photo is not only a good reminder of the poverty seen in other countries, but also perhaps can be seen as an invitation in our own lives to live more simply.