QUEEN’S MEDICAL GRADUATE STAGES PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION IN ANTRIM 
06 October 2020
Dr Tuck Wooi Goh, MB BCh BAO (1985), a photography enthusiast who has worked in the Ulster Hospital’s Emergency Department for 23 years, has captured a unique series of photos, documenting the Covid-19 pandemic through the eyes of a frontline doctor.
The Queen's medical graduate who lives in County Down, has curated the exhibition entitled Pandemic – The Ulster Hospital which documents the hospital’s battle with the coronavirus over the last seven months. It will remain on display at The Oriel Gallery in Antrim until the middle of November.
Speaking to PA news agency for an article that subsequently appeared in the Shropshire Star in May, Dr Goh said:
“I felt a sense that I needed to document this very interesting and surreal period of our department,” he told the PA news agency.
“It fitted the genre and niche of my kind of photography. So I started off by taking photographs of just basically how we got ready for what’s to come and just documenting my fellow colleagues – doctors, nurses, porters, domiciliary staff – just to get a sense of what was involved, the scale of this thing.
“It was just to document this very special, interesting period of the department. And so that’s what I thought I should do. And that’s what I’ve been doing and still I’m doing even today.”
Originally from Malaysia, where he attended the Anglo-Chinese School in Ipoh, Tuck Goh arrived in Northern Ireland in 1979 to study for his A-levels in Coleraine Academical Institution. He qualified from Medical School at Queen's in 1985.
Tuck Goh left medicine for several years to work in commercial photography. When he took up his medical career again in 1997 in the Emergency Department at the Ulster Hospital, he continued to photograph, specialising mainly in weddings and portraiture.
For the last few years, his interest has been in street photography, documenting ordinary urban life in a visually interesting style.
Like medicine, street photography involves being interested in people. It requires attention to small details, little gestures and predicting human behaviour in order to help capture the 'decisive moment'.
Wrapping his pocket-sized Fuji camera in cling film when photographing in Covid areas of the hospital Dr Goh captured intimate moments, mainly in black and white, providing a moving and unique insight into the life of frontline staff during what was – and remains – an extraordinary time in world history.
Pandemic – The Ulster Hospital is on display in The Oriel Gallery in Clotworthy House, Antrim Castle Gardens until 15 November. To find out more, contact Dr Goh via his website.
To submit graduate news items, or for general enquiries about this story, please contact Gerry Power, Communications Officer, Development and Alumni Relations Office, Queen's University Belfast or telephone: +44 (0)28 9097 5321.
Headline image by Tonypang from Pixabay
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