About
Welcome to Street Anatomy, the blog on medicine, art and design!
Medical visualization is an umbrella term that encompasses everything from medical illustration to 3D medical animation. Medical Illustrators don’t just draw detailed anatomical illustrations anymore, they use their artistic skills combined with technology to produce dynamic visualizations.
Medical Illustrators translate, visualize, and convey complex scientific information in order to educate anyone from doctors to the general public. If you have ever opened a science textbook, watched a pharmaceutical ad, heard of Gray’s Anatomy (not the show), or stepped foot in a doctor’s office, then you’ve probably witnessed some form of medical illustration.
Most important of all, we persuade people to learn by engaging them with visual media that will educate them to take care of and maintain their bodies.
Take a look through some of my essential links and the post archives to learn more about the profession, its history, and the medical illustrators of the past and present. And if you’re a student interested in pursuing medical illustration, feel free to send me an e-mail with any questions you may have. I’ll do my best to answer them, or find someone who can.
My e-mail address is MISVAN@aol.com
About the Blogger
My name is Vanessa Ruiz. I’m a current graduate student in Biomedical Visualization at the University of Illinois at Chicago, one of the few medical illustration programs in the nation. I’m also Vice President of the Student Association of Medical Artists (SAMA) at UIC.
I attended the University of San Diego to avoid the long cold winters of Chicago and to pursue marine biology. I ended up dropping the marine and received my B.A. in Biology. I didn’t take any art classes in college, but I did spend three out of my four years doing scientific illustrations of the pelagic tuna crab. This eventually led me to discover the field of medical illustration and I haven’t thought about doing anything else since.
After graduating I,
- took a year off,
- worked at Starbucks,
- took figure drawing classes,
- drew a lot,
- applied to the medical illustration programs at UIC and Johns Hopkins,
- got into both,
- picked UIC
- and am now consumed with medical visualization.
But in my free time I love cycling, street art, photography, graphic design, art shows, and working on Street Anatomy.
