Posted on March 1, 2004 at 1:45 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Photography, painting, music, and jewelry highlight the 2004 Student Art Show to be held by students at the School of Medicine at UAB.

The art show, presented by the Alabama chapter of Alpha Omega Alpha, the national honor society for medical schools, is co-sponsored by the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences. It runs from March 5 to June 4 in the museum on the third floor of the Lister Hill Library, 1700 University Boulevard. An awards ceremony and reception will be held at the museum from 3 to 5 p.m. on March 5.

This is the fourth year for the show, which drew 22 entries. The entries were judged by a panel of UAB students, faculty, staff and supporters. The top three winners will receive cash prizes and all entries will be on display in the museum.

“It is important to balance medical students’ scientific and medical education with exposure to the arts and humanities,” says Stephen R. Smith, Ph.D., director of student life for the medical school. “The physicians we train here must be able to interact on many different levels with their patients, and this art show provides a means for them to creatively explore and express their own humanity. We think this will help them to connect with all people on a basic human level.”

The winning entry is an untitled group of four black and white photographs by first-year medical student Justin Duke. Second place goes to a CD of music, December Tracks, written and performed by George Atkinson, also a first-year student.

Jewelry in bronze and stone, called Droplets, took third place. It was the work of first-year student Lauren Van Duyn.

Also receiving recognition as Juror’s Choice awards were fourth-year student Mary Boyd Barfield for her oil on canvas Your Backyard; an acrylic painting called Backwater Adventures by first-year student J. Rian Williams, and black and white photographs entitled Gulf Mobile & Ohio Railroad Stations, Mobile and Wake by Ashley Coleman, a first-year student.

The judges for the competition were Brett Levine, director of the UAB Visual Arts Gallery; Susie Harris, associate curator of education, Birmingham Museum of Art; Patrick Grant, AOA president and a fourth-year medical student; and Stefanie Rookis, curator of the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences.