I was having a drink with a medical illustrator colleague, the gin and tonic must have been on the strong side because our conversation turned to work…(don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, artists are inherently boring people) Anyway, we started to discuss the effectiveness of medical illustration and animation in health communication. An hour later, we left the bar no wiser. On the way home I thought that this was a topic that should be explored further, so I did a little research. In these next series of blog posts I will be explaining what I found and how this information can be used to create better, more effective medical media.
Let me start off by saying that the communication of health information through visual mediums has become essential to communicate the marvels of the medical world. This is because I believe that medical illustrations and animations positively affect learning retention for its viewers. Visuals make the communication of information to audiences easier and broaden the number of people who are able to process this info. However, there is still a lot of research to be done before universally communicable media can be created. Studying target audience and effective teaching methods, two subjects that I will go into in future blog posts, will help to increase successful communication and data recollection between health informants and recipients.
…So grab a drink and please join me in this conversation.
XVIVO has created our second animation for Incyte which will be featured at the American Society of Hematology’s 53rd annual meeting in San Diego, California. ASH’s education and scientific programming introduces current research, therapies and tools used by both researchers and clinicians. Last year XVIVO created a Mechanism of Disease animation (shown below) along with an interactive DVD. This year Incyte presents a mechanism of action animation. As always, we are honored to work with the Incyte team helping them bring their science story to life. XVIVO has also been commissioned to produce another interactive DVD for Incyte.
Sheila Nirenberg, associate professor of physiology and biophysics at the Weill Cornell medical college will discuss her work in neural coding. Sheila and her colleagues have developed a retinal prosthetic that requires no surgery by using optogenetics. This remarkable convergence of biology and computer science exemplifies the possibilities present through scientific collaboration. 
Charles Pell is a renaissance man in his own time. Painter, inventor, sculptor and scientist, Chuck’s mental process may very well be a subject of discussion in and of itself. He dedicates this talk to the science of biomechanics and how, through the work being conducted at Physcient, antiquated medical tools will be replaced with next-generation surgical instruments. Charles co-founded the medtech company, Physcient, with long time colleague Dr. Hugh Crenshaw.
