Medical-legal illustration requires quick thinking, problem solving, and empathetic rendering. To master these skills, we master’s students at University of Toronto were given real cases originally represented by Artery Studios. I sorted through all the original material from the case: police reports, ER reports, surgeons’ notes, and radiology imaging. In groups, we were tasked with piecing together the story of the accident and accurately representing our John Doe.

Even though each student was only tasked with completing one piece, I thought this case deserved more elaboration. I created the following two exhibits illustrating initial injuries and surgical intervention from a motor vehicle collision. This involved carefully studying radiographs from the case to ensure my depictions were correct.

I loved the challenge of the assignment. It is one thing to comprehend human anatomy in a prisitine, textbook state—it is another entirely to understand how it lives and breaks.