UAB Magazine Online Archive
Healing Arts
The Creative Side of Medicine at UAB
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Christina Cooley |
Christina Cooley has always enjoyed the visual and tactile pleasures of painting. So when it came time to pursue a career, the young artist naturally chose . . . surgery. “My artistic side influenced my decision,” says the third-year student in the School of Medicine at UAB. “I love working with my hands and looking at things meticulously.” In turn, Cooley adds, immersion in the world of health care is influencing her art. “It has given me new themes—passion, life, and death—and mediums I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.”
Cooley isn’t alone in mixing medicine with the muse. In the slideshow below, meet the winners of the 2009 School of Medicine Art Show. And don’t forget to view part 1 of this story, an exploration of the possible origins of creativity.
The Science Behind the Spark
UAB Neurobiologist Ponders the Creativity Impulse
By Charles Buchanan
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David Sweatt |
What kindles the spark of creativity? David Sweatt, Ph.D., finds that question doubly interesting. As neurobiology chair, director of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute at UAB, and Evelyn F. McKnight Endowed Chair for Learning and Memory in Aging, Sweatt investigates the cellular and chemical mechanisms of learning and memory. And as an abstract painter, he is curious about the possible biological basis for his vivid ideas.
In this slideshow, Sweatt shares his thoughts on the possible relationship between neurobiology and creativity.
Man and the Moons
UAB Scientist Offers New Views of Space
By Jennifer Ghandhi
More than 800 million miles from Earth, the space orbiter Cassini is busy shooting pictures of the planet Saturn and its moons. Thousands of these in-flight images are available online on Cassini’s home page—but the spacecraft’s oeuvre includes many recordings that cannot be appreciated with human eyes alone. They’re snapshots of data gathered by an onboard instrument called the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS), which records measurements of reflected UV light that is invisible to humans. On Earth, UV rays can be harmful, but in space, UV data is immensely useful to astronomers measuring the composition of distant planets.
Right now, NASA scientists don’t have a way to effectively interpret the UVIS data Cassini is relaying, so they’ve tapped UAB physicist Perry Gerakines, Ph.D., to help. He was awarded a three-year, $408,000 grant to create thin, icy films of materials thought to be on Saturn’s moons and then analyze them with a custom-built UVIS of his own. “We’re going to measure these spectra—the way different compounds absorb and reflect light—in the hopes that we can use them to interpret the spectra we see from the icy moons on the rings of Saturn,” Gerakines says.
The Social Lives of Teeth
Training Dentists to See the Whole Patient
By Doug Gillett
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Mark LaGory and Michael McCracken |
Cavities, fillings, plaque buildup, gum disease—dentists in training have a lot to learn about potential problems in the mouth. But at the UAB School of Dentistry, lessons no longer end at the lips. Students now evaluate a host of issues not normally considered part of routine dental care: What other health problems do patients have that might be associated with their dental problems? What aspects of their lifestyles might be contributing factors? And, depending on their socioeconomic status, will they have access to the follow-up care they’ll need down the road?
This new holistic approach can be summed up in three words that are heard frequently around the dental school these days: “the whole patient.” The idea is that patients aren’t just mouths to be worked on but rather whole bodies that are unique members of a diverse society. This is the focus of an innovative new course, “Dentistry and Dental Health: Socio-cultural Factors,” that examines the links between dentistry and daily life.
