Interview with Dr. Dawn Lim
I am an emergency doctor at the University Health Network and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. I research how storytelling can be used as a tool for building self-compassion in medical practice with a particular focus on changing the shame-based culture of medicine.
When I'm not practicing medicine, I create. I am a photographer and creative non-fiction writer living and working in Toronto, Canada. I'm particularly interested in using storytelling to advocate and support humanitarian work locally and abroad. My work has been supported by a National Geographic Covid grant and can be found in various national media outlets.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience with the arts?
I started studying photography, maybe two or three years into my burnout. That burnout was in 2012 when I had been staff in emergency for two to three years. Things had become very automatic. It wasn’t easy for me to pay attention to the person who was in front of me, but then I started to photograph.
Originally, I was interested in landscape and travel photography. I wanted to capture the beauty of the places that I had visited. I decided to take photography classes because it was just such a different way to spend my days. I enjoyed the mix between working and teaching at an academic center during the day and then having photography classes at night. People at the photography classes would talk about things like what papers would be the best for this photograph, or what composition would look really good. I quickly noticed that my headaches would go away, and I would just feel refreshed to go back to work. That’s how I started photography.
I also like to write. I used to do quite a lot of writing when I was in high school, but like most things, I’d given that up during medical school. I started to write again when I was pregnant with my first child. Over the years, I’ve started to blend photography and writing together. I write about my photographs, and photograph things that are interesting to me.
Q: There are some amazing photographs on your website, with a wide variety of themes. Can you talk a little bit about some of your favorite projects that you’ve put together and where you draw inspiration for your photos?
I think that there are two major themes that run through my work. The first is: medical life. My earliest experience photographing medical life was a project that my professor had given me. It was to capture a scene but have no people in it. I had this idea in my mind that I would love to capture what a resuscitation room looks like after the team has done a resuscitation. The photo is called “The Aftermath”. That day was a very cold day, and there was a hypothermic arrest in the emergency room. I waited and I waited for that shot. That photograph made me realize how much medicine goes unseen by people who are both inside and outside of medicine. It made me realize how much story there is in medicine that no one is talking about. I think that was the photograph that started my journey into the creative portion of my medical career.
Motherhood is the second theme that I’ve returned to. It’s a very complex relationship that I find really fascinating. I started writing when I was pregnant with my second child, and so I was thinking a lot about my mother. My grandfather had died around that time, and I realized that I didn’t really have that many good photographs of him—not with me. And so, as an expectant mother who was thinking about her parents, it was really the theme that resonated with me. It still resonates with me. It’s going to be something that I continue to photograph.
Q: It’s the quiet moments, where we can stop and reflect. How has putting together photo essays of frontline health care workers and the emergency department impacted you and your perspective of healthcare?
The practice of photography and the practice of writing was what helped me to avoid burnout during the beginning of the pandemic; the two practices also helped me realize the importance of stories. One of my senior colleagues said, “You know, after SARS, no one talked about it.” I couldn’t believe that no one took photographs. I even Googled photographs of SARS, and there was almost nothing. If I hadn’t heard what my colleague said, I might not have realized how important it is to photograph this historical moment that we are living in. And so, for me, my photography helped me tell a story and saved me from burnout. If I hadn’t put my energy into that creative project, I think I would have been overwhelmed with fear, anxiety, and the unknown.
Q: Are there any photos from the photo essay on healthcare during the pandemic that you would like to speak more about?
Whenever I do a photo essay, I have in my mind some photographs that I feel I would love to have. It’s kind of like a wish list. For example, I really wanted to capture someone’s face after a resuscitation so that I could see the spotlight on their face. One photograph that I really like is the one of the firefighter. He had just been doing CPR for 30 minutes, and he was as red as a lobster. He was wearing his firefighter uniform, and he had just taken off his PPE. He was trying to transfer the patient to the emergency team. I remember thinking, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe what this man has done.” It’s hard enough when you’re just wearing scrubs. It’s so hard to do that when you’re wearing the firefighter uniform. I remember thinking, “I need to photograph him.” The patient that he brought in actually died, and so there’s also a photo where the team is taking a moment of silence. That photograph was my favorite photograph from that whole series. I think a lot of times we don’t really pause to think about what we do. When we pause after a resuscitation, I think it’s a really great time for the team to not only think about what went well, but to also take a moment for ourselves and a moment for the patient. Those are two photographs that stand out to me from the essay.
Q: How do you feel like you have developed as a photographer since you first started? Do you have any advice for people in healthcare who are interested in starting photography?
When I first started with photography, I didn’t even really know how to use my camera. My first piece of advice is to start photographing a lot. One of my first assignments was to take 1000 photographs. It forced me to start taking photos of things and start looking at things differently. I will say, some of my best photographs are actually from those initial days when I didn’t really have any preconception of what my style was. It was really just about trying to find what interested me. Knowing how to use your camera is really important.
I also found that it was really helpful to photograph in stories. For example, I would try to use 10 photographs to tell a story. Then, once I knew how to use 10 photographs to tell a story, that’s when I started to learn how to capture the story in one photograph. Capturing a story in one photograph is really, really hard. I liken it to poetry. You don’t have that many words to tell a story. It’s the same thing with a photograph. It’s one frame to tell a story. I haven’t mastered it, obviously, but I think that’s a really good start for most.
Q: You mentioned travel was a pretty big part of your life. On your blog and photography website, you documented your pilgrimage from France to Spain. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
I wanted to go on a pilgrimage when I graduated from medical school, but I wasn’t organized enough. Then, when I was doing my MBA, I had the summer off. I said, “If I don’t do it now, then I’m never going to do it.” It takes six weeks to walk from the border of France to Santiago, Spain, so I blocked off the time. I also had a “why”. At the time, I was basically working 24/7, teaching, and doing grad school. However, I was confused about what I wanted to do with my life. My sister-in-law had gone on the pilgrimage a few years before, and she said it was a really good time for her to think. I knew that’s just what I needed. I knew I needed fresh air. I needed exercise. I needed stillness.
I took a six week pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. On a pilgrimage, it is really hard to carry anything, but I carried a proper camera over 800 kilometers. I only brought one memory stick and no charger for my battery. I wanted to be really specific and very deliberate. I also carried a small journal because I wanted to remember my time. The gift of a simple day was that I got to see a sunrise every day. I was a really slow walker and the Spanish sunshine is hot, so I would just start walking really early when it was cool. I would walk in the early morning under a sky so full of stars. I would meet random people, and I would ask them, “Who are you and why are you here?” No one asked me if I was a doctor. In fact, I don’t think people even knew I was a doctor until someone had an accident and then I said, “I’m an emergency doctor. I can help.” No one cared about what I did for a living. They just wanted to know about my dreams and why I was there. The routine was so simple: sleep, eat, talk, walk, walk, walk, talk, repeat, repeat, wash my laundry, and hang it up. There was no TV, no deadlines, and no admin. When that became my routine, it gave me a really good chance to think about all of the things that I wasn’t doing. There were so many things that I did before medical school that I just dropped because I was so busy. I wasn’t spending time with my family. I wasn’t spending time with my friends. I didn’t have that space in my life, or a creative space just for me.
Interestingly, when I decided to go, I was initially focused on figuring out what to do with my career. On the one year anniversary of coming back, I reflected on how many things I had learned. I revisited my photographs. I revisited my little journal, and I said, “You know, these are really wonderful stories. I changed a lot during that time.” And so I started the blog. If you read my blog and the things that I’m writing right now, you will quickly realize that why I had to go on this pilgrimage had nothing to do with my career. It wasn’t the career that was my problem. It was really about what I wanted my life to look like and how I had veered off so much from that.
Q: What is the most important lesson that you’ve learned from your creative journey as it relates to your life and career?
What I realized was that I couldn’t think my way to the endpoint. I had to live it. That’s how I got into photography more deeply. That’s why I said yes to the writing class, which led to the documentary class, which led to the story about the emergency department. People started seeing my work and associating me with creativity, and then more opportunities opened up. I would never have been able to predict where I would end up. When I started medical school, I wanted to be a cardiologist. Now, I’m an emergency room doctor, but also involved in photography and writing. My number one advice is to pay attention to the things that are interesting to you. Explore, and don’t be fixated on an end goal.
In medicine, we talk a lot about science and a lot about the evidence. However, for me, it’s the stories that matter. Photography and writing saved my medical career. Once I realized I needed to sit down and really listen to the story of the person in front of me, that brought back so much of the enjoyment that I had when I first started medicine. Somewhere in the rush of trying to go faster or dealing with hallway medicine, I forgot that. Even though the clinical work is quite the same, I reframed it in my mind. Now, I am someone who wants to go to work. It was that reframing, taking the time to really listen to the patient’s story, that made the difference for me.
Book recommendations:
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
Start With Why by Simon Sinek
Atomic Habits by James Clear
