What is medical illustration?

Medical illustration is a profession that integrates health science knowledge in a visually appealing manner with the purpose of engaging and educating the viewer. Medical illustrators have extensive knowledge of anatomy and pathology in addition to training in the visual arts. This expertise allows them to use their creative talent, critical thinking skills, and problem-solving abilities in order to communicate medical subjects to a variety of audiences. To name a few, medical illustrators serve to inform healthcare professionals, students, and patients about pathologies, drug interactions, and new medical procedures. Medical illustrations can be presented in a wide variety of formats including textbooks, posters, brochures, and journals. Thus, medical illustrations contribute significantly to the advancement of the healthcare field, impacting the quality of care and education.

Can't I just use images already made or photographs?

With novel techniques, discoveries, and research being made every day in the medical and healthcare field, new illustrations are usually needed to depict them. Previously-made images may be copyrighted. To avoid infringing someone else's copyright, it is ideal to use something new. They also may not fit your exact needs. Keri Leigh Biomedical Creations offers accurate, high-quality illustrations that are tailored to fit your needs and guaranteed to be original.

Why hire a medical illustrator?

Medical illustrators have extensive scientific knowledge and artistic training. This expertise allows them to use their creative talent and problem-solving abilities to communicate complicated medical subjects to a variety of audiences, as well as to tailor illustrations that will meet a client’s specific needs.

What is certification (CMI)? Are you certified?

"The Board of Certification of Medical Illustrators administers a certification program as a recognizable means to signify a practitioner's current competency in the profession. A Certified Medical Illustrator (CMI) has passed examinations dealing with business practices, ethics, biomedical science, and drawing skills, and has undergone a rigorous portfolio review. Competencies are maintained by meeting continuing education requirements and must be renewed every five years. The certification program is based on standards established by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA)." – Association of Medical Illustrators. (2020). Learn about it. https://ami.org/medical-illustration/learn-about-medical-illustration Yes! I am now certified as of January 2020!

What is the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI)?

See https://ami.org/about-ami

Why did you choose this career?

I decided to enter the field of medical illustration because I’ve enjoyed both science and art from an early age; I loved to draw and had a strong eye for detail. In high school and college, I enjoyed biology and learning about how life works, especially at the cellular and molecular level. For my high school senior project, I explored medical illustration as a career and fell in love. I desired to combine my artistic talent and scientific knowledge to help demonstrate to others what we cannot see or usually don’t get to see. With this career, I am also able to satisfy my love of teaching by creating illustrations that educate others about topics that are sometimes difficult to grasp. There is no other career that I was able to picture myself enjoying as much as medical illustration.

Do you specialize in a particular subject or technique?

Given my degree in cell and molecular biology, I particularly enjoy that area as well as anatomy. I predominantly use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, but I am proficient at many other mediums as well.

How do you determine your prices?

How I charge can depend on a variety of factors. The biggest factors are the amount of time it will take and the deadline. Another factor is the artistic style, since a style that is more complex impacts the amount of time. See KLbiomedcreations.com/process for style examples. Copyright and usage terms may affect price as well. As the artist, I maintain copyright unless specified in a contract. Transferring copyright or allowing multiple usage rights may increase price.

What kind of services do your offer?

I offer illustrations, animations, and digital 3D models! Illustrations can be for research publications or presentations, brochures, textbooks or atlases, journals, medical legal, and more! For more information, see KLbiomedcreations.com/services. I also offer non-medical art to those interested! Nature and landscapes are my favorite, but to see what I can do, check out klbiomedcreations.com/non-medical-art.

Uma Dinsmore-Tuli

I was first introduced to yoga at the age of four by my mother and I began meditating at nine on a pilgrimage with my maternal grandmother. Yoga and meditation have been part of my daily life ever since. As a naturally curious and enquiring yogini, I have engaged passionately and critically with a variety of schools of yoga and yoga therapy, especially Structural Yoga Therapy, Satyananda Yoga and Iyengar Yoga. Since 1997, the heart of my daily personal and therapeutic practice has been yoga nidra. I practice yoga nidra a minimum of twice daily, finding it to be the most powerfully transformative and nourishing of all yoga techniques. I first encountered the practice at the Satyananda Yoga Centre in 1996, and have been exploring all aspects of it with fascination ever since. I have studied a variety of approaches to the practice both in India and the UK, with nationally renowned exponents including Swami Muktidharma (Satyananda Acharya, New Zealand), Mukunda Stiles, and Richard Miller. I have refined a range of particularly feminine therapeutic applications of yoga nidra, including its use for the promotion of fertility, positive birthing, postnatal recovery and conscious menstrual health. I have shared yoga nidra with hundreds of people, in every conceivable environment, from nursery schools, hospitals and airports, to giant geodesic domes filled with yogis sheltering from wild storms at yoga festivals and gatherings. I have been sharing the technique with teachers from all lineages on Yoga Therapy training courses and retreats since 1999. After completing the Yoga Biomedical Trust Diploma in Yoga Therapy in 1999, I continue to find the fully integrated approach of yoga therapy to be the most practical route to the healing power of yoga. I have further trained in Structural Yoga Therapy and Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy with Mukunda Stiles, and I now work as a yoga therapist with special expertise in women’s health. I am currently refining Womb Yoga through a series of international workshops and retreats My PhD is in Communications from Goldsmith's College, University of London. Since 2001 I have been a training tutor in Yoga Therapy. I was a recognised teacher of the British Wheel of Yoga and taught British Wheel of Yoga In-service training days between 2001 and 2015, when I resigned in protest about their failure to address ethical issues of abuse and exploitation in the yoga world. As a mother, I have been both personally and professionally engaged with the development of pregnancy yoga, yoga for birth and postnatal recovery, and family yoga, and have been training teachers in this field since 2002, when I first tutored for the Birthlight Trust. Since then I have delighted in creating my own courses to promote excellence of teaching in this field, including Well Woman Yoga, Pregnancy Yoga and a uniquely responsive Integrated Mother and Baby yoga teacher training. With the intention of widening access to pregnancy and postnatal yoga, I founded Sitaram Yoga with my husband in 1998, and it continues to offer pregnancy and postantal yoga classes in London, including at Kings and St Thomas’s hopsitals. I leads retreats and courses worldwide, sharing the approach to yoga therapy set out in my CDs, DVDs and books: Mother's Breath, Teach Yourself Yoga for Pregnancy and Birth, Feel Confident: Yoga for Living, and Yoni Shakti - a book about the evolution of feminine spiritual authority through yoga and tantra. I am currently co-writing another book, The Celtic School of Yoga: An Introduction. For full product listing see Buy Products or go to www.yogamatters.com. Before yoga and mothering took over my life completely, I spent seven years as a journalist and ten years working as a lecturer, tutor and course designer in higher education. I draw on my experience as writer, educator and mother to create positive learning experiences and high standards of teaching, training, appraisal and support on all my courses. I am mother to three children: Tejomaya, Abhisheka, and Rajakumari Prayaag, who were all born at home in the Sitaram yoga rooms. www.umadinsmoretuli.com International Association of Yoga Therapists' Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT) (the presentation of Uma is from the Yoga Nidra Network website)

Beverley Bruce

• Beverley Bruce specialises in therapeutic applications of breath, movement, meditation and rest, creating a nurturing and supportive space for each individual to honour their needs as they find their way to feeling resourced and balanced, at any stage of life. She combines her extensive experience across the fields of yoga, psychotherapy, somatic therapy and yoga therapy in both private practice and group classes. In all of her sessions, she encourages kindness, compassion, and deep listening within, sensing and following what feels right for each of us. For her, Yoga is really a practice of awareness and coming home to ourselves. Beverley is inspired by therapeutic practices which resource and balance us, and loves sharing creatively blended forms of the healing practices of Restorative Yoga, Total Yoga Nidra, YogaSOMATICS and Womb Yoga. She is currently completing a Professional Doctorate in Psychotherapy with the University of Edinburgh, where she has been exploring the bridge between psychotherapy and yoga. Beverley has studied Restorative Yoga with Judith Hanson Lasater to an advanced level, YogaSOMATICS and Somatic Bodywork with Ateeka, and Total Yoga Nidra and Womb Yoga with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, whom she assists in trainings and workshops around the world. www.b-ing.co.uk

Nirlipta Tuli

Nirlipta Tuli is founder and co-partner of Sitaram Partnership and also Yoga Nidra Network. Nirlipta's particular interest lies in the therapeutic applications of yoga nidra, where he focusses on insomnia and sleep related issues, lucid dreaming, dealing with stress, enhancing productivity for individuals and groups, and pain related issues. Much of this has been informed by his own experience, using yoga nidra to manage a life lived with cardiomyopathy, autism and insomnia. He offers mentoring and pastoral care to other yoga teachers and to students on all Total Yoga Nidra courses and events. Before creating Yoga Nidra Network Nilripta worked as a registered clinical hypnotherapist. He trained at the London College of Clinical Hypnotherapy and has specialist training in perinatal hypnotherapy. He is a full member of the British Society for Clinical Hypnotherapy and also an associate member of the British Association of Clinical Psychotherapy. At the heart of his unique hypnotherapy practice was a specialised approach to perinatal hypnotherapy, including work with birth trauma resolution and the release of fears and anxieties around childbirth. Nirlipta has been practicing yoga since 1988 and teaching since 1990. He has yoga teaching diplomas from three different yoga teacher training organisations: Bihar School of Yoga, British Wheel of Yoga and Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres. He has also has undertaken further training in pregnancy yoga, yoga therapy and the health and safety aspects of yoga teaching. He has particular expertise in teaching yoga practices for positive mental health, stress relief and relaxation. Nirlipta also holds an MA in Indian Religion and Philosophy from the School of Oriental and African Studies. (the presentation of Nilipta is from the Yoga Nidra Network website)