Medical illustrations in full colour
December 5, 2021 1:35 PM Subscribe
Also there is a simple meningitis rash test that you can do with a glass/tumbler - that can literally save lives, yet it is never shown with Non-Caucasion skin !
posted by Faintdreams at 3:28 PM on December 5, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Faintdreams at 3:28 PM on December 5, 2021 [6 favorites]
More on Chidiebere Ibe, the illustrator.
posted by dannyboybell at 4:57 PM on December 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by dannyboybell at 4:57 PM on December 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
I was shocked to learn that there are almost no reference works showing how skin diseases present on darker skin, which is often extremely different from how they appear on lighter skin. You think this would be an obvious oversight…..
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:01 PM on December 5, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:01 PM on December 5, 2021 [7 favorites]
I feel like I am always beating this drum in nursing school. "How would this look on darker skin?" "Does this 'skin colored' item come in darker colors?" "Why aren't there any non-White theorists we are reading on this topic?" The professors are responsive to it but they never seem to anticipate it. Like folks, look at the community, look at the class, and then look at this book. Can you not tell who is missing?
posted by Emmy Rae at 5:02 PM on December 5, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by Emmy Rae at 5:02 PM on December 5, 2021 [14 favorites]
The flip side of the coin: anatomical exhibits of actual cadavers trend BIPOC.
I don't actually recommend clicking on that link, which shows imperfectly preserved corpses in cross-section at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. The museum elsewhere exhibits fetuses collected by Dr. Helen Button, during the Depression, when miscarriages were common. The fetuses are overwhelmingly White, presumably because Dr. Button and her colleagues were not treating Black patients.
Ibe's work is lovely. His illustrations don't merely lay open Black bodies to the medical gaze. They depict Black people as alive and active: feeding a Black child, or pointing a finger back at the viewer. And meanwhile displaying their internal structure, like a superpower.
posted by feral_goldfish at 5:34 PM on December 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
I don't actually recommend clicking on that link, which shows imperfectly preserved corpses in cross-section at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. The museum elsewhere exhibits fetuses collected by Dr. Helen Button, during the Depression, when miscarriages were common. The fetuses are overwhelmingly White, presumably because Dr. Button and her colleagues were not treating Black patients.
Ibe's work is lovely. His illustrations don't merely lay open Black bodies to the medical gaze. They depict Black people as alive and active: feeding a Black child, or pointing a finger back at the viewer. And meanwhile displaying their internal structure, like a superpower.
posted by feral_goldfish at 5:34 PM on December 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
Laaaaa! So nice. I am put to mind of medical student Malone Mukwende’s recon (and, as I understand, groundbreaking) “Mind the Gap: A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin”.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 6:11 PM on December 5, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 6:11 PM on December 5, 2021 [11 favorites]
I spent about a decade working on scientific and medical educational illustrations up until about a year ago. There has been some effort by some textbook publishers to show more diversity in skin color.* Frederic Martini's Anatomy & Physiology series of books is one case where we were tasked with upgrading several dozen illustrations, and in the process added a lot more black and brown people. Here's one of my favorite textbook covers, illustrated by a colleague. But these are all drops in the bucket. There is SO MUCH legacy art existing out there that is all white bodies. Lots of work still left to do.
I wish Chidiebere Ibe well, have sent him some $, and I hope he gets to Kyiv Medical School!
* I feel gross even half-defending Big Publishing.
posted by Kabanos at 7:05 PM on December 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
I wish Chidiebere Ibe well, have sent him some $, and I hope he gets to Kyiv Medical School!
* I feel gross even half-defending Big Publishing.
posted by Kabanos at 7:05 PM on December 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
It is strange that I had just been thinking about how it is always a white fetus being depicted. Thanks for posting!
posted by vorpal bunny at 7:58 PM on December 5, 2021
posted by vorpal bunny at 7:58 PM on December 5, 2021
I was shocked to learn that there are almost no reference works showing how skin diseases present on darker skin, which is often extremely different from how they appear on lighter skin. You think this would be an obvious oversight…..
When a good friend of mine (a white woman) was in school to be a Physician Assistant, she did have one textbook that was specifically about the appearance of wounds, rashes, etc on darker skin. But I literally cannot remember whether it was a required text or something she got herself as a supplement, knowing she was likely to be working at a public hospital in Detroit. This was probably 15 years ago now. That "Mind the Gap" reference looks really good.
Around this same time, I was anticipating becoming the white mother of a Black baby, and I was grateful to my friend for having educated herself on this, and, when the baby ended up having an enormous umbilical hernia, I was glad to also have a friend who was a pediatrician who could tell me that these are much more common in Black babies than white babies, and that, even though it was kind of alarming*, it would almost certainly resolve without any intervention, which it eventually did
*It was also weirdly fun. You could compress it, pushing the air inside in back into the baby's abdomen, and then watch it reinflate. My son is 14 now, and I hadn't thought of that in a long time.
Anyway, I love that fetus illustration. Every step is a part of the remedy for this narrow-mindedness.
posted by Orlop at 9:07 PM on December 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
When a good friend of mine (a white woman) was in school to be a Physician Assistant, she did have one textbook that was specifically about the appearance of wounds, rashes, etc on darker skin. But I literally cannot remember whether it was a required text or something she got herself as a supplement, knowing she was likely to be working at a public hospital in Detroit. This was probably 15 years ago now. That "Mind the Gap" reference looks really good.
Around this same time, I was anticipating becoming the white mother of a Black baby, and I was grateful to my friend for having educated herself on this, and, when the baby ended up having an enormous umbilical hernia, I was glad to also have a friend who was a pediatrician who could tell me that these are much more common in Black babies than white babies, and that, even though it was kind of alarming*, it would almost certainly resolve without any intervention, which it eventually did
*It was also weirdly fun. You could compress it, pushing the air inside in back into the baby's abdomen, and then watch it reinflate. My son is 14 now, and I hadn't thought of that in a long time.
Anyway, I love that fetus illustration. Every step is a part of the remedy for this narrow-mindedness.
posted by Orlop at 9:07 PM on December 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
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I think yes !
Anatomical drawing of Normal Male breast tissue
posted by Faintdreams at 3:23 PM on December 5, 2021 [5 favorites]