UAB School of Medicine Art Show features students, residents and faculty

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The UAB  School of Medicine’s 2008 Art Show, now in its 8th year, continues to examine the link between art and medicine with 37 submissions from faculty, residents and medical students.

The art show is presented by the Alabama chapter of Alpha Omega Alpha, the national honor society for medical school students, and the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences. It runs through May 30 in the museum on the third floor of the Lister Hill Library, 1700 University Blvd.

The show features works including paintings, drawings, photography and sculpture. It was judged by a panel of UAB faculty, staff and students. The top three winners receive cash prizes, and all entries are on display in the museum.

“The opportunity for physicians and medical students to express themselves through art enhances their ability to interact with patients and families,” said Stephen R. Smith, Ph.D., director of student life for the medical school and a contest judge. “The art show provides another means to creatively explore and express their own humanity, reinforcing a pathway to help them to connect with all people on a basic human level.”

The winning student entry is an acrylic self-portrait by Jon Miller, a first-year student. Second place went to an oil pastel and charcoal work entitled La Vie En Rose, by third-year student Nicole Loo. First-year student Leslie Perry took third with a pastel on paper called Gabby.

In the faculty division, the winner is Brendan McGuire, M.D., with a pencil drawing entitled Miller’s Family Tradition of Trains. Second place goes to Michael Klein, M.D., for a photomicrography called Lumbar vertebra with osteoporosis demonstrating three healing trabecular fractures. Alex Szalai, Ph.D., took third place with a photograph titled Sunrise: Same Day.

Among the residents, first place went to Sacred, a cast iron using sacrums sculpture by Ben Stronach, M.D.. Stronach also won second place with a sculpture called Sacrums.

Also receiving recognition as Juror’s Choice awards are an oil painting from Maribel Salas, M.D., Risk and Benefit; an ink drawing from Miller, Farmall; a pastel on paper from Perry, Naomi; and 2007, photography from Casey Hitt, a second-year student.

In addition to Smith, the art submissions were judged by Brett Levine, director of the UAB Visual Arts Gallery; Stefanie Rookis, curator of the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences; and Cynthia Irby, a fourth-year medical student and vice-president of Alpha Omega Alpha.