Painting a bigger picture: Medical student creates mural at Touro
Connor Necaise took up painting when he started medical school four years ago, a stress-relieving hobby that came without the pressure of perfection necessary in the classroom and clinic. Necaise created small portraits that he gave as gifts, never holding on to a painting long enough to see any imperfections.
Necaise graduated from Tulane University School of Medicine in May, and a lasting project connected the lessons he’s learned from school with those he's learned through art. Necaise painted a large mural in the Neurological Rehabilitation Center at Touro Infirmary.
“You’re so close when you’re painting a mural that you have to take 10 steps back, literally, to get a better view,” said Necaise. “That’s such an obvious metaphor for medicine. If you get so caught up in the details when you’re treating a patient, you can miss a much larger problem, and you’re not treating the whole patient like a larger picture.”
It took Necaise about 20 hours to complete the painting, and he wanted to create a familiar, comforting scene for patients recovering from brain and spinal injuries.
“I think there’s something special about seeing a scene that you might have at home while you’re in the hospital,” said Necaise. “I wanted to paint something that was very Louisiana.”
Necaise also wanted to paint a love letter to New Orleans, the place he’s called home for the last four years. Necaise grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and has never lived outside of the South. He’s now headed to the psychiatry residency program at the University of Colorado Anschutz in Denver.
Through both medical school and art, Necaise learned that practice and perspective, not perfection, make him a better doctor and artist. That same willingness to step back and see the bigger picture will follow him from the bayou to the Rocky Mountains, shaping how he approaches both the canvas and the patients in his care.
