Questão 2 - UEG 2024/1

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The Creator of a Viral Black Fetus Medical Illustration Blends Art and Activism

 

Chidiebere Ibe says his work is not just about the lack of representation in medical illustrations. It's also about the beauty of African culture.

By David Limm January 13, 2022

As an aspiring medical illustrator, Chidiebere Ibe noticed the absence as soon as he began to learn the craft. Why aren't there more images of Black skin in medical illustration?

In a healthcare system beset with racial inequities, the relative scarcity of dark skin tones in medical textbooks is no exception. Driven to correct this imbalance, the Nigerian-born would-be neurosurgeon started teaching himself to illustrate, using Black skin to depict various medical conditions and procedures.

One-and-a-half years and one viral illustration later, Ibe is now a student at Kyiv Medical University in Ukraine, a budding illustrator, and an advocate for racial health justice. Over the past few weeks, his image of a Black pregnant person and fetus struck an instant chord on social media. For many, the picture was a reminder that racial bias can permeate every level of healthcare and medical training.

"I’ve literally never seen a black foetus illustrated, ever," said one Twitter user, whose post with the image helped propel the illustration to virality. "Seeing more textbooks like this would make me want to become medical student," said a commenter on Ibe's Instagram post.

Ni-ka Ford, a medical illustrator whose work is a favorite of Ibe's, said on Twitter, "Bias towards able-bodied whiteness in medical education materials is very harmful, it contributes to inequality and disparities in healthcare."

[…]

A 2018 study of four anatomy textbooks frequently assigned at medical schools found that dark skin tones were greatly underrepresented, making up less than 5% of more than 4,000 images analyzed. The same study also found that, despite having higher mortality rates for six common types of cancer – breast, cervical, colon, lung, prostate, and skin – Black people appeared in fewer than a quarter of images depicting cancer. None of the cancer-specific images showed what the study deemed to be dark skin tones.

Race matters, and skin tone matters in medicine, especially in dermatology. Research has shown that when dermatologists fail to recognize disease in Brown or Black skin, the results can be deadly.

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HealthCity spoke with Ibe about the need for racial representation in healthcare, his approach to drawing Black skin, and the role of creativity in medical illustrations.

HealthCity: You've said that you are motivated by a passion for equity in healthcare but also by the beauty of Black people. Why do you think medical illustration is such a powerful device for promoting these things?

Chidiebere Ibe: Because I'm in the medical field, I am making use of the tools and the skills that I have to advocate for what I believe in. If I were a singer, I would sing songs to advocate for what I believe in. Because I'm an artist – I'm a medical illustrator – I have to create art that would advocate for what I believe in.

My drawings are not just depicting skin, or the Black skin, but also showing how Africa looks, typically. If you go to my drawings, you would see some drawings that depict how Africa looks like. For example, I created a drawing of a child with measles. That drawing was a child sitting on a bicycle, heading to the farm to get food for the day. Now, that's typical lifestyle of Africa. My drawings are depicting how Africa looks on a daily basis and also portraying the medical part of it.

[…]

Disponível em: https://healthcity.bmc.org/policy-and-industry/creator-viral-black-fetus-medical-illustration-blends-art-and-activism. Acesso em: 10 out. 2023.

Concerning the term “blends”, in the title of the article, it can be inferred that