Medical Director of Capital Region Medical Center’s Rehabilitation Unit brings awareness to healthcare challenges created by the pandemic using photos

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

"Broken" is a project that was created by Dr. David Lancaster, Medical Director of Capital Region Medical Center’s Rehabilitation Unit in Jefferson city. He asked healthcare, administrator workers, who have worked during the pandemic and patients who experienced COVID-19 to hold up a piece of paper and use one word to describe how they feel about the pandemic.

Lancaster said in the beginning, it was very scary dealing with COVID because of how contagious it was and not knowing how to treat it. He said as more waves of the virus came through, he saw the tiring effect it had on his staff at the medical center.

Lancaster then got the idea to take photos and later did audio interviews of the people telling him a story about what they endured during the pandemic. He interviewed over 20 health care workers about their experience.

Friday, Lancaster held an event at the Orr Street Studios, an art Gallery in Columbia, so the public could come out and see his project.

COVID-19 has affected the world in a way that we didn't expect. Lancaster said he called the project "Broken" after hearing his patients' stories, he sees the pandemic has broken a lot of people.

He says his nursing staff experiences a double life.

"There were two worlds, they would come into work and they would see patients die on their shift from COVID and then they would go home and some of their family members or friends thought that this was a hoax and that it's made up and that the vaccine there's a political motive behind the vaccine or it doesn't work and I saw them straddling these two worlds and it was really difficult for them," said Lancaster.

At the event, people could also scan a QR code to listen to the story of the person in the photo. Hoping people understand a different reality. Lancaster says he wanted people to interact with the photo and for the story to be told and he felt the project served that purpose.

Gabrielle Jefferson is a nurse that participated in the "Broken" Project.

She says she didn't expect the broken project to get big.

"I just thought it was gonna be something like on a Facebook page that he had mentioned and I never thought that we'd be in a studio right now or that so many people would be you know coming out to see it," said Jefferson.

Lancaster had some of his photos featured in other art exhibits in L.A., Denver, Colorado and the online platform Artsy.