A professor and a student gathered around a diagram of a brain during a recent class at Georgia Health Sciences University. The professor pointed out lobes, arteries and nerves as the student followed along.
Then they looked at the student's sketch of the brain.
"I would make the frontal lobe a little wider because of the width of the temporal lobe," professor Steven Harrison advised. "If you add more shadow, you'll get more depth."
The critique occurred during the medical illustration program, whose graduates go on to do everything from designing websites to illustrating journals to handcrafting prosthetic devices. Students receive lessons in illustrations, drawing, animation and other design methods. They also join medical students in science courses, such as gross anatomy and cell biology. They observe surgeries, standing almost shoulder to shoulder with surgeons, so they can sketch and capture the procedures.
Georgia Health Sciences is one of only four colleges in the U.S. accredited to offer the graduate program. The University of Texas/Southwest Medical Center in Dallas is closing its program because of budget cuts, but the Georgia program will continue. This year, the Augusta college received 49 applications for just nine spots. More than 260 students have gone through the program since its inception in 1949.
"There are times when a picture can describe what words can't, and that's where we are needed," said William Andrews, interim chair of the medical illustration graduate program.
There are about 1,200 medical illustrators in North America, according to estimates from the Association of Medical Illustrators.
Medical illustrators are employed by hospitals, schools, medical centers, government agencies and advertising and pharmaceutical companies. They could be called on to design public health campaigns or to illustrate informed consent forms so patients understand the surgeries doctors will perform. They draw diagrams and other visuals for educational purposes, everything from school textbooks to training manuals for doctors and nurses, Andrews said.
"This isn't just a still life, they must be clear and accurate," he said. "What we bring is the ability to tell visual stories."
Students spend their days divided between art and science. They could start the day dissecting a cadaver or watching a surgery and then return to the class studio to work on sketches.
The studio space is quiet except for the sound of pens and pencils scratching against paper. The hallways surrounding the program's offices and classrooms resemble a gallery. Instead of watercolors of landscapes, students’ art captures the inner workings of the kidney, lungs and other anatomy.
Berrien Chidsey of Rome, Ga., majored in art and minored in biology as an undergraduate. He shook when dissecting his first cadaver.
"It takes time, but you get used to the cadavers," he said. "It's amazing to see the body up close like that. Our drawings got so much better just after the first time."
As students advance through the program, they will learn how to cater the images to different audiences. An illustration of heart surgery for a patient will be completely different from creating a surgical training guide for a surgeon, said Ronald Collins, who graduated from the program in 1990.
Collins is now CEO of Nucleus Medical Media in Kennesaw. The company, which has 35 employees, creates medical illustrations, animations and online learning tools for higher education and health care.
His company is the type of place where Katie Dale hopes to work. Dale, who is from Peachtree City, enrolled in the medical illustration program because she didn't want to choose between science and art. After completing the nearly two-year program, she wants to work with an animation company that would allow her to design a wide range of science and medical artwork.
"I don't want to do the same thing day in and day out," Dale said. "I want to work in the areas I'm passionate about, while still always getting to do something a little bit different."
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