This is your brain tumor.
You drew the picture, right?
Yes. I drew the picture after viewing the patient’s MRI.
It’s well drawn, don’t you think so?
This area controls our language, especially speaking.
And, your brain tumor is right here.
Hello. My name is Dong-Su Jang, and I’m a medical illustrator.
You just saw my drawing in a recent medical TV series.
As you can see, through the use of drawings,
the doctor is able to explain the disease more easily
and correctly while the patient is able to understand his/her disease better.
People who perform such jobs are called the medical illustrator
I’m going to talk about “the power of medical images”,
roles and contributions of medical illustrator in medical fields,
as well as the prospect of the medical illustration.
The contents presented here offer information on the thoracic cavity.
Piece of cake, right?
If we had a picture here, it would be easier for everyone
to understand the meaning that the passage holds.
There is nothing better than illustrations to explain something in medical field.
It is another type of language.
Now, where are such fields mainly utilized?
It is used often in medical journal articles,
medical textbooks,
and cover of medical journals.
Recently, we can see them in smartphone applications,
patient education leaflets, professional training programs,
and in TV documentaries and advertisements.
Medical Illustration can be viewed as a combination of science and art.
By describing complex medical and biological information visually,
it is possible to deliver complicated meanings more readily.
Now, don’t you want to know why I chose to be a medical illustrator?
I will tell you the story.
I was born as the youngest of the four: two sisters and a brother.
Since my siblings were all busy,
I had to spend most of my time alone at home.
Therefore, I began to draw with the pencils and papers
my siblings had left at home.
It was then that I began to draw, which I found interesting.
Even after entering elementary school,
I loved drawing more than studying.
My friends praised my pictures,
leading me deeper into world of drawing.
I continued to draw in middle school and high school.
Statues for drawing training were my friends.
Luckily, it was quite natural for me to enter the college of fine arts as a sculpting major
My desire to reproduce the surrounding images was strong
and I found myself growing interest in the human body.
The name of this work is “Family”.
I did this when I was a sophomore.
My sister’s family members were the models for this work.
To study more about human body,
I took an art anatomy course at the college.
This is one of my works for that course.
I became interested in the art anatomy.
However, at that time, I had no idea about the “medical illustrator” profession.
However, all was started when I applied to anatomy department
in Yonsei medical school as a teaching assistant.
It was there that I met a whole new world.
I met professor In-Hyuk Chung at Yonsei University.
He was working with artists to make an anatomy textbook when I came in contact with him.
As an artist, I was a stranger in the anatomy class,
a space where life and death coexisted.
Every day I studied and dissected bodies with the medical school freshmen.
Professor Chung and other artists illustrated the body in front of me
to make the creation of the anatomy textbook possible.
My predecessors had established fundamental operation of medical illustration
and from that basics I learned from them,
I was able to work on the 4th edition of Human anatomy.
Every day after all the students went home,
I dissected and drew bodies in the anatomy lab.
At that time, it was hard for me to look the tasks from the objective medical viewpoint
because the subjective artistic viewpoint was still dominant.
Above all, medical terms about anatomy were the major obstacles.
Fortunately, professor Chung turned difficult terms into simple Korean words
and the textbook we worked for was based on the easier Korean terms.
Pretty soon I could concentrate on illustrating.
This image shows the ‘submandibular gland’ and ‘facial arteries’.
After working intensively into the night,
I really wanted to show it to professor Chung.
I said “Professor, I drew the submandibular gland and facial artery crossing the gland.”
But he said “Ah… Mr. Jang, you seemed to have made a mistake”
I told him that I had seen it personally.
Then, the professor followed me to the lab to check the body structure.
And he said, “This is not the ordinary anatomy.
It is a typical variant.
I’m so sorry. We can’t use the image for the textbook.”
I was so disappointed.
But through trial and error,
I began to change little by little.
If you love it then you will know it.
After you know it then you will see it.
Then it would be different from what you had seen before.
This is my favorite phrase.
When Prof. Chung went out for an international conference abroad,
there was a break for 2 weeks,
I wanted to retry facial dissection
and illustrating the structures, which was a difficult task.
But when I told the professor my desire,
he recommended me to do an easier job.
He was worried that I would mess up
the fine structures in the faces such as the facial nerve plexus.
Despite the consequences, I wanted to try.
I refused to change the subject,
and finally he allowed me to do what I wanted.
These images were done at that time.
Base sketches. Colors are painted step by step.
This is the parotid gland next to an ear.
Red lines represent vessels and yellow lines the nerves.
If parotid gland is removed, these structures appear.
This image is unique in that it shows passes of facial nerve from the origin to the end.
None of the famous anatomy atlases have an image that shows such concept.
Every time I drew, I tried to draw pictures in a different perspective than the others had.
It was around that time that a medical research supporting section
was developed in Yonsei medical school.
Once again, I was placed in a different environment.
Rather than dissecting bodies,
I spend my days sitting in front of the desk and drawing.
Medical research supporting department consists of 3 parts: statistical supporting,
English correction, and graphic supporting part-the department I work in.
But when I came to this part, there were nothing accomplished.
After grasping the concepts and organizing the categories, I began the supporting.
Besides, graph editing, cartoon creating, and designing PPT templates,
one of the main job is to support articles for SCI.
After working in the hospital and managing the graphic support alone,
the times that I had to meet the doctors multiplied.
The times that the doctors had to rush out of the operating room also increased in return.
Every time they said something, I had to understand them quickly
and express it accurately in the graphic works.
I realized relationship between me and doctors were critical.
Sufficient communication was always mandatory for effective progress.
When medical illustrator and doctors communicate in equal position,
then the outcome can be maximized.
Since my drawings could evolve only thorough the feedbacks from doctors.
Therefore, I think managing the relationship and communication with doctors
is the most important role of medical illustrator.
This is the example of medical illustration in urology.
It is not allowed to get the real patient’s photo in medical journal because of the copyrights.
But after translating the photo into illustration, it doesn’t matter.
The doctor wanted to show that surgical equipments were entered into patient’s body
via single port making the surgical performance more convenient than usual.
The image you see right now shows the discussion between the doctor and the illustrator
in deciding how to draw the structure.
This is the final image including all the stuffs the doctor wanted,
and this image is utilized in a good journal.
Recently, robot-assisted surgery is getting popular.
This illustration shows process of the robot-assisted surgery inside the body of a patient.
This picture is also utilized in the journal as well.
Only through the pictures included in the journal,
it is difficult to understand what it is trying to convey to the readers.
With the inclusion of illustrations, it becomes possible to relay the information effectively
During such procedures, I asked myself a lot of questions.
How can I perform these jobs more effectively?
Is there any other ways to do it?
After some contemplation, I found the answer.
This is a knee operation in an orthopedic surgery.
If I had stuck to the typical way,
I would have gone to the anatomy lab and drawn pictures of the bone.
But in this situation, the bone of the patient is dislocated.
Since it was not possible to draw a fitting illustration for the journal,
I came up with a new method.
It was to use specific software and extract a bony image from CT scan
and reconstructed them into 3-dimensional manner.
After that, I manipulated the 3D images just like the real situation,
matched the position of the bones,
then finally, I added surgical contents to create this nice illustration.
This was also utilized by a good journal.
Like this, I tried various ways for the orthopedics illustrations,
and they resulted in acceptance for publication in famous journals.
I would like to summarize the roles of medical illustrations
for medical article in several sentences:
Easy understanding, various subjects,
higher quality article, and enhance the possibility of acceptance.
5 years has passed with the research supporting department.
Now I work as a freelancer medical illustrator.
I started a new adventure, thinking and studying new ways.
This image will seem different to everyone depending on
the method used to present them to the people.
Now I work for 3-dimensional image projects.
People are getting more and more interested in moving images.
So I want to find more effective ways to express them.
And for your smartphone, I’m sure that many of you have it.
I am making an application about heart anatomy,
which is easy to use and study the anatomy in 3D.
But it is unfinished yet.
This is a Kinect, a motion sensing input device.
So it mimics motion of this person.
I am studying it to promote interest in medical science.
It is ongoing research as well.
Next one is an augmented reality.
I added bony structures on the mark.
It is through the use of camera that the reality
and the computer generated world moves as one.
I think this might be helpful to stir up excitement
among the student ultimately helping them with their medical education.
For the last 10 years, I have spent most of my time
with doctors and hospital officials rather than artists.
Medical research and medical education have infinite potential.
As they develop, the role of medical illustrators will become crucial.
In my opinion, hospitals and medical schools must have
a specialized division of supporting system for research and education, 0:15:09.451,0:15:15.621 because no one can do better than specialized professionals.
I set two life goals going with this job.
First is to contribute in improving quality of medical research and medical education,
and second is to work as a bridge connecting specialists and non-specialists.
There are many people who want to change the world.
But without harmony, there will always be something wrong.
Once harmony is established,
our world can be more beautiful.
Let’s go together towards the better future. Thank you.