Redefining Art: A Way to Bringing Healthcare Equity
Category: Event Calendar
Date and Time for this Past Event
- Thursday, Feb 24, 2022 10 - 11 a.m.
Location
The University of Akron
302 Buchtel Ave
Details
Self-taught Black artist and medical student, Chidiebere Ibe, brings diversity to medical textbook illustrations. Ibe saw a lack of non-white bodies in his medical textbooks. He sought to change that. His medical illustrations displaying black bodies evoke empathy and humanity; and they are having a profound impact on the medical community, and have gone viral on social media platforms. He will share his story in this virtual conversation from Kyiv.
The lack of representation in medical illustration has long been the status quo, but Chidiere Ibe, a 25-year-old first-year medical student at Ukraine’s Kyiv Medical University, is hoping to help change that—starting by making his own medical illustrations featuring Black men, women, and children. His work has found an eager audience online among medical professionals and laypeople alike.
On November 24, Ibe posted a drawing of a Black fetus in utero on social media, calling for more diversity in medical illustration. The drawing struck a chord with viewers, many of whom had never realized they had never seen a Black figure in medical diagrams. Since then, his post has received close to 74,000 likes on Instagram, plus over 2,000 shares on Twitter.
“Textbooks are essential to medical training. They walk medical trainees through conditions they will encounter during their practice. The skin is an important organ that protects us and can signal when something is wrong in our body. Yet, most medical illustrations are on the Caucasian skin. This lack of diversity has important implications for medical trainees and their future patients because many conditions and signs look different based on the patient’s skin color.”
The artist, who is from Ebonyi State, Nigeria, taught himself to draw during lockdown. He is chief medical illustrator and creative director of the Journal of Global Neurosurgery, and plans to become a pediatric neurosurgeon.
Free
