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“If somebody had told me ten years ago that I’d be doing what I’m doing now, I’d never have believed them,” says Autumn Rennie.
That’s probably because Rennie’s career is entirely unique. On the one hand, she’s an MD/PhD student at U of T: having completed two years of medical school, she’s now finishing the doctoral portion of her program through the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology at the Faculty of Arts & Science.
On the other, she’s also an accomplished filmmaker whose groundbreaking creative approach shows how film can be used as a tool for advocacy and empowerment. “I came to medical school with a background in both the sciences and the arts,” says Rennie, a self-described “U of T for life” student whose first undergraduate degree was in neuroscience and psychology, followed by further undergraduate studies in theatre, literature, and film.
“I debated for some time whether to do a science-based PhD, because that was where all my research had been up to that point, or take a far more unconventional path of narrative medicine or arts-based research. Of course, what that looked like was not very clear — because no-one has done a PhD like this in the program before.”
Doctors with MD/PhD degrees traditionally pursue careers as clinician scientists, devoting equal time to clinical and research work. Once her PhD has wrapped up, Rennie will return to medical school to finish her studies there.
Ultimately, she aims to work as a ‘clinician artist,’ using filmmaking as a new research medium — where narrative evidence, such as the stories and lived experience of patients, care providers, and healthcare workers — can be used as a tool for understanding illness experiences that cannot be quantified or observed using traditional research methods. One of her core passions and areas of research interest surrounds disability advocacy, with two recent films, completed in the service of her PhD, examining this theme in different ways.
Becoming the Butterfly is a feature film about brain injury. In making it, “We collaborated with brain injury survivors right from the beginning,” Rennie says. “We had a series of workshops, working together towards the creation of a script.” In the end, an amalgamation of the participants’ experiences was distilled into the story of the film’s main character.
“One theme that came up in conversation was the idea of metamorphosis: a life before brain injury, and a life after, the beauty and challenge that comes with this immense change. That’s where the title comes from,” Rennie says.
Lights, Camera and a Call to Action is a documentary that was crafted in collaboration with the Centre for Global Disability Studies at University of Toronto Scarborough.
“In the film, we focus on three individuals with disabilities — a theatre artist, a musician and a painter — who are also community advocates,” Rennie says. “We look at how they’re using their art to change the narrative around disability.
“I’m curious about collaborative, participatory approaches to knowledge creation,” Rennie says. When making a film about people with health challenges, she asks: “How can we bring patients, caregivers and health care providers into the filmmaking process so that we’re not just consulting with them, then going off to make a film?”
“I’m in dialogue, both with my PhD but also with the industry itself: trying to push us all in a direction that changes things at not just academic but industry levels.”
In practice, this means everything from ensuring that film sets are accessible, to encouraging the involvement of those with lived experience across the filmmaking process.
“It’s not easy, because film is very time-sensitive,” Rennie says. “There’s a lot of pressure to get things done quickly. But I’m hoping that people will see these are more authentic representations than the ones we’ve, in many instances, become accustomed to seeing.”
She also hopes that her work may stimulate new ways of conducting medical and scientific research.
“There is still very much a bias toward quantitative, evidence-based approaches: big clinical trials with huge amounts of data. But now there’s more of a discussion about qualitative approaches. More recently we’re asking, how can the stories that people are sharing be an important source of knowledge creation as well?”
In the future, Rennie sees herself continuing to make films while working in emergency medicine.
She’s volunteered for years in the emergency room at the Hospital for Sick Children, where she was a patient in her own childhood. “The first point of care is so crucial — it makes such a difference to the rest of your care moving forward,” she says.
To say Rennie has a lot on her professional plate is an understatement, but the intensive work necessary to get it all done comes naturally to her.
“The hardest part of life is finding what you’re passionate about,” she says. “Once you find that, you have an energy for the work that is unparalleled.”