For my final project I had the idea to do imaging of imaging in healthcare. I thought of this project because I aspire to become a physician and go into the healthcare career. Imaging has become an extremely useful tool for diagnosis and screenings; it has shaped healthcare tremendously. I want to capture the impact it has on providing care to patients, as well as, the procedure and resulting product. The difficulty with this project is access to medical equipment; the hospital has high-security when it comes to such devices and I need to figure out a way to gain access for a period of time to shoot.
This idea is novel, as far as my knowledge. Not many, if any, have dipped their toes in the artistic representation of imaging. In this aspect, I have no examples to learn from; however, it gives me the liberty to take initiative and set the mold for such a type of images.
Some types of medical imaging are:
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): uses powerful magnets to polarize and excite hydrogen nuclei in water molecules in human tissue. This excitation causes the positively charges to spin in the opposite direction and this can be produced as an image. MRIs create 2D image representations.
- Ultrasound: uses high frequency sound waves in the MeHz range that are reflected by tissue to varying degrees to produce (3D) images.
- Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans: uses gamma rays emitted by a positron-emitting radionuclide (F-14) which is administered to the patient and is taken up in the body like glucose. The 3D image produced by computer analysis is used to determine brain function, cancer metastasis (spreading to other site), etc.
