Here are a few select works from over 100 illustrations that I’ve done as the in-house medical illustrator and animator at Veritas Health, an online patient education publisher. These illustrations were either didactic or editorial in nature.

All images are copyright to Veritas Health, LLC.

Depression is currently one of the most prevalent causes of mortality and morbidity, which occurs in all genders, ages, and socioeconomic backgrounds. And while there are many interactive and visual tools to address depression outreach campaigns, there is a significant deficit of visuals with appropriate scientific depth in depression outreach and stigma prevention programs.

These graphics were part of a study that sought to ultimately demonstrate key characteristics of successful mental health outreach (MHO) educational programs through an audio-visual tool addressing the biogenic etiology of depression. Characteristics were identified based on review of MHO literature, evaluated through informal feedback sessions with biomedical visualization professionals, and finalized following review with a content expert and the research committee members.

These are a few select animated illustrations or GIFs I have done as the in-house medical illustrator and animator at Veritas Health, an online patient education publisher. These images are either didactic or editorial in nature. GIFs are perfect when we need to illustrate a process in a small amount of space.

All images are copyright to Veritas Health, LLC.

I collaborated with Dr. Mark Rasenick to make a dynamic illustration showing how the movement of G Proteins in the plasma membrane can serve as a biomarker for depression. This piece went on to win an Award of Merit at the Association of Medical Illustrators 2016 Conference in the marketing category and was featured as a cover for the Journal of Biological Chemistry in September 2016.

Shortly after we worked again to create a schematic to supplement Dr. Rasenick's commentary for the Journal of Biological Psychiatry, pioneered off of the original A Biomarker for Depression illustration. The main goals were to show primary cilium with a GPCR (5HT6R) and adenylyl cyclase in the primary cilia along with a membrane region showing a lipid raft (and non-raft) in the dendrites. Highly molecular pieces, such as these, often have a great amount of research and work best when the biomedical visualization specialist has consistent communication with their client.

This project was created to accompany an article for the Northwestern Public Health Review, entitled Design as a tool for Public Health Innovation. Emphasizing the artist and physician in this piece working together to figure out design elements pertaining to health brought attention to the main issues in the article.

The title of the article that this illustration was prompted by, Design as a Tool for Public Health, inevitably meant that this illustration had to both visualize 'Design' as well as exhibit great design taste. Using a clean style while incorporating vector graphics helped achieve a successful balance to supplement the article.

The UIC Sleep Science Center sought a patient education sheet to address areas in which patients were having trouble understanding their diagnosis. After multiple visits to the UIC Sleep Science Center and sitting down with both patients and physicians, I learned their biggest problem was enticing patients to try and feel comfortable with CPAP.

The continuous positive airway pressure mask, or CPAP mask, is not a beautiful thing. I worked with the doctors to develop a visualization that focused more on the therapy and comfort the mask can bring, and less on the bulky design. The partnership led to a final piece that clearly laid out pertinent anatomy, a schematic of the problem, and closed with an appealing solution through the CPAP machine.

Here are highlights from the many animations I’ve done as the In-House medical illustrator and animator at Veritas Health, an online patient education publisher. These videos cover spinal anatomy and pathology that may lead to pain and average around three minutes in length

As a medical storyteller, I helped editors translate article content that worked well in written format to something more appropriate for video. This included employing a “Show, Not Tell” strategy, as well as defining guidelines for the organization of information specifically for video.