Frank Armitage Lecture-Day 1

Well today was the day - the beginning of the 2009 Frank Armitage Lecture that our Biomedical Visualization graduate program. It seems like just yesterday I was building the website for the event. I swear, this semester has to slow down! Anyway, I wanted to be prepared for the morning and be on-time and put-together for the event so I picked out my outfit the night before and everything else was ready to go for the smoothest morning possible.... of course that didn't happen. When my alarm went off in the morning, I realized it went off too early so I set it for a later time.... too bad I turned it off and ended up waking up at 8 instead of 7. Well, I guess I will just have to take a cab again. Annoying, but still on time. I hop in the shower and get ready to look presentable-professional and I'm out the door with coffee-in-hand on-time. To my surprise, even with living right off of Clark Street in the heart of Lincoln Park, there are no cabs to be seen... and it is raining. No, not today, just not today. After hoping to see a vacant cab for 10 minutes, I decided to call for one. The operator said it would be less than 5 minutes. Okay, I can handle that. Well after another 10 minutes, I said screw it and I finally was able to hail a cab. The cab I called for called me 10 minutes later... not quite the time they gave me. Oh well, I got another one. Later, when I was about to be dropped off they cabbie figured out I was in school and stated that I was too beautiful to be in the medical field... whatever that means, but I took it as a compliment. Public compliments seem to be my thing; I can't go anywhere without someone noticing me even though I don't feel like I stand out. Oh well; there are much worse things that could happen.

Needless to say, I was late again by 10 minutes. Even though I attempt to be as prepared as possible, there is always some unexpected variable that destroys the plan. I just can't seem to catch a break. I walked into the lecture to Noah Lowenthal, Vice President of Abelson-Taylor. He discussed working in pharmaceutical advertising, more specifically working with the client, different animators and companies to create the product, as well as the working team. The drug, Kapidex, was the example the he discussed. Abelson-Taylor needed to build a booth for a convention that was promoting the drug. The A-T team decided that interactivity was key to captivate the audience, in which they decided to utilize Microsoft Surface. The work that A-T did was very impressive, especially as this was the first time that the company was working with this software.

Greg Blew was next, in which he discussed Emmi Solutions and patient education. More specifically, he started with the beginnings of the company, the significance of patient education for the patient as well as the hospitals, planning, budgeting, and survey scores from patients. Since Greg is also a professor for our program, he has discussed some insider info with us prior, but nothing like this. It was great to see even more of such a beneficial business.

After lunch, we had our last, and main, lecturer, David Bolinsky. Starting out with prehistoric art and man's ability to create artwork and evoke movement. Bolinsky went on to bring this idea into his own life and his progress to where he is today. Starting out in med school and doing pen and ink illustrations on the side, he was always interested in animation. Taking a leap of faith, he decided to drop everything and follow his dream. Can you believe this man started his company XVIVO, a 3D medical animating company, without ever owning a computer? They started off small and not well-known, but after submitting a short on the process visualizing the process of extravasation at a Siggraph conference and getting rave (yet unexpected, or so XVIVO thought) reviews, the company was jet-set to stardom in an instant. It was amazing to see the success that he had through his hard work and following his dream, which were his words of wisdom for the audience as well.

I couldn't believe what a success the first day of the lecture was this year. Usually, the talks, other than the main lecturer, are attended mainly by Biomedical Visualization students and faculty. This year, all the seats were full for every talk. It is fantastic to see how more people are becoming aware of what we do. All of the speakers were captivating, interesting, and the work they showed was just incredible. I don't think our program could have asked for a better day. We'll see how tomorrow goes!

Video courtesy of youtube.com. Inner Life of a Cell.