The Eyes Have It

There are probably some people out there who would say a collection of two works isn’t a museum. However, these quilts are so beautiful I don’t think it’s fair to quibble over what’s a museum and what’s not. I agree with Vaughan from Mind Hacks who described them as lush, intricate and enthralling. They are another example of deriving powerful art from the reinterpretation of medical imagery. Their creator, Dr. Marjorie Taylor, is Professor and Head of Psychology at the University of Oregon and focuses on work involving children’s imaginary companions. I hope Dr. Taylor is creating more of these and that they will be part of the museum soon.

(Housekeeping note: I’ve added a new category to TEHI for reinterpretations of medical imagery into other media and material. Please email me the details of any examples you might know of. I once did a bone density scan in paper for a osteoporosis slide set cover. I’ll see if I can track down a scan.)

[via Mind Hacks]

“An annual conference at which medical and health science educators and developers gather from around the world to explore and share the uses of multimedia and information technology in medical education. The focus is on cutting edge developments, implementation of courseware, eLearning, web enhanced curricula, wireless mobile computing, graphic design, animation and digital video. Curricular integration, sharing and evaluation are central themes.”

The 2005 conference was in June but there is a low-volume mailing list that distributes information about their activities and events that I joined. Maybe I can make next year. It looks like there were about ten sessions I would have liked to attend (”Virtual Reality and Anatomy Learning”, “Managing Your Digital Multimedia Assets: The HEALster Project”, “Story-Telling, Emotion, and Media in Technology-Based Medical Education”…). Of course, I would have had to have gone from the HeSCA meeting to InfoComm then straight to Slice of Life.

How the heck did I miss this? I stumbled across the site yesterday and it was, of course, too late for me to make plans to see it today. It would have been nice to see the old neighborhood. USP is right across the street from my first apartment. I’ll have to keep an eye on the Marvin Samson Center for the History of Pharmacy for future exhibits. It looks like it was a great show.

“University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP) is exhibiting a selection of original medical illustrations by Frank Netter, M.D. (1906-1991), a world-renowned anatomy artist who is regarded by many as the most accomplished and influential medical illustrator of the 20th century.

“The exhibition at USP consists of 47 unique gouache—watercolor—paintings from a corpus of more than 4,000 of Dr. Netter’s works that display various aspects of illness, trauma, anatomy, development, malformation, pathology, medical testing and diagnosis, and patient care. Many of his impressive illustrations, commissioned by Ciba-Geigy Corporation over several Woman with Dermatosisdecades, appeared in Clinical Symposia, a well-known quarterly clinical monograph used by primary care professionals as a teaching aid and reference. “

In order to promote his book, Eve, Aurelio O’Brien created a number of bizarre animations illustrating some of the more mind-blowing (and humorous) possibilities of genetic manipulation in the forth millennium. It looks like a good story but I can’t be the only one who finds that sink animation seriously disturbing.

I’ll trade you a Cryptosporidiosis and a Cyclosporiasis for two Ecoli O157:H7 Infections.

The Center for Disease Control is offering 31 disease trading cards. The cards are very nicely designed and laid out. The images are compelling. The only thing I don’t like about them is that there is no way to download all the cards at once. Each individual card is in it’s own PDF file.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I’m also very well aware that the promised HeSCA Conference Wrap Up is still in my draft queue. However, I think I have a good reason for being so neglectful (and it has nothing with spending a week down the Jersey Shore). Just three months after launching Visual Being, I found myself co-founding yet another blog.

Eels in Vinegar is “Dedicated to excellence in biocommuncation and is inspired by the work of Robert Hooke and his successors.” It was created by myself and two other HeSCA members Christopher Sarley and Keven Siegert after we dicussed the need for a HeSCA-related blog at the conference in Seattle.

To borrow the words I used for the Visual Being announcement…

We are only just beginning to get off the ground, lining up contributors, working out the kinks, etc. There are a few posts there now but were hoping to have a lot more stuff in the near future. Enjoy!

You have to visit the site to find out what the name refers to.