Third-year medical student Catherine Reppa and second-year dental student Jose Bonilla from the UT Health Science Center talk with Carlos Machado, M.D., about his drawings in a Netter Atlas.
Printer Friendly Format

A one-day Art and Anatomy Workshop in April brought together faculty and staff from the UT Health Science Center San Antonio, the art department from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and students from both institutions interested in human anatomy from the artistic and functional points of view.

The workshop, held in the Briscoe Library’s Howe Conference Room at the UT Health Science Center, was developed by Charleen Moore, Ph.D., professor of cellular and structural biology at the Health Science Center; Jayne Lawrence, M.F.A., senior lecturer from the Department of Art and Art History at UTSA; and Penelope Borchers, M.L.S., from the Briscoe Library.

Medical illustration
Guest faculty included four medical illustrators, Nancy Place, M.S, David Baker, M.A, Sam Newman and Christopher McKee, from the Health Science Center’s Department of Information Management and Services in Academic Technology Services.

Two special guests were also present, Carlos Machado, M.D., the current medical illustrator for the Elsevier Netter Collection, and Ron Philo, Ph.D., retired senior lecturer from the Health Science Center’s Department of Cellular and Structural Biology, who recently co-authored a book on the anatomical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the Royal Collection at Windsor.

Students practiced drawing the body using plastinated specimens from the Department of Cellular and Structural Biology.

The workshop provided an interesting interaction between UTSA advanced art majors from Lawrence’s Special Studies in Art class and second- and third-year Health Science Center medical and dental students.

Lectures by Place and Dr. Moore introduced the students to the field of medical illustration and to important anatomists/artists from the 15th to the 19th centuries, many of whose original works were on display in the P. I. Nixon Medical Historical Library. The workshop also included a movie on human facial expression and discussions with faculty and guests. It concluded with a display prepared by Borchers on many of the important rare anatomical texts from the P.I. Nixon Collection and a drawing session using plastinated human specimens from the anatomical collection in the Department of Cellular and Structural Biology.