Hope, The Best Medicine (2018)
This painting is for patients and those who provide medical care who are in need of inspiration.
Tag: art in medicine
Contributing Writer
Sidney Kimmel Medical College Thomas Jefferson University
Kaitlyn Dykes is a 3rd year medical student at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. Her writing and art focus on aspects of delivering patient-centered care, the experience of medical training, and helping fellow students develop into aware, compassionate physicians. She is President of Physician Executive Leadership (PEL), a program committed to aiding students in becoming physician healthcare leaders of the future by addressing critical gaps in medical education. She is also dedicated to and actively involved in clinical translational research. She graduated with honors in 2011 from the University of Minnesota with a degree in genetics, cell biology, and cell development, along with a minor in art history, and fulfillment of the Dean's Scholars Leadership Program.
The Importance of Medical Illustration in Patient Communication
For Dr. Francois Luks, the pen is mightier than the sword. Armed with ink and a blank pad of paper, he begins to draw out a stomach. With a stroke here and some shading there, he deftly sketches the anastomoses of a procedural resection.
Ensconced in His Throne Upon the Sea
I strode down hallways, winding ‘round to meet / A sailor old and take to him his meal. / A gentle bounce in every step on beat, / This home to many always builds my zeal.
Five Inestimable Pounds
A canvas / Of delicately oiled / Skin, stretched taut
Last and First Days
Was it a fall? Did I miss the last step? These things I cannot recall / Hidden from sight, the blood crept from one lone vessel and began to compress / Nice to meet you, one medical student said, as he unzipped my sheath
two slides
after three years go by / you appear on two slides / in a lecture / on motor neuron disease
Pupil of the Eye
The eye dilated in the physician’s dark exam room, / While into it the eyes of new white coats loom, / From this eye I am learning
Under
Little girl / in the pink hospital gown / sits in a windowless room.
Hyperammonemia
Hepatic failure claimed him mentally, / And colored yellow both his eyes so wide / As too his being stained corporally.
Hummingbird
“I used to be an elementary school art teacher in San Francisco.” The more he smiled and the more he spoke, the larger the lump grew in my throat. He wore a grayed t-shirt that matched his unkempt black beard.
The Importance of Storytelling in Medicine
His fiancée calls him “The Storyteller.” We sit down outside a cafe during a warm August evening. Still clad in his hospital scrubs, he just finished a shift as a pulmonary/critical care fellow at Rhode Island Hospital.
Body Field Meets Sterile Field (2017)
Where the consciousness floats into the medicine / Where the sacred meets the metal / Where the steel cuts the energy field
Contributing Writer
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
Vanessa Velez is a fourth year medical school student at Geisinger Commonwealth Medical College interested in psychiatry. She graduated from Cornell University in 2013 and later volunteered in Los Angeles with an AmeriCorps program. On the West Coast, she began to explore her right brain and spirit. Inspired by nature, love, fellow humans, travel and relationships, Vanessa uses art to free, release and share what is being received from Divine Source. Vanessa hopes to dive further into the human experience through art and psychiatry.