UCF medical student showcases art in contest

It's not every day that medical students are given the opportunity to demonstrate their artistic and empathetic sides.

But once that opportunity appeared in the form of a contest, UCF's Shawna Bellew seized it and won.

According to the American Medical Association's website, Bellew and 33 medical students from around the country participated in the first AMA Humanities Initiative.

The medical-themed art contest encourages future doctors to identify with patients. This year's theme urged its participants to express empathy through poetry and art.

Submissions were due by June 1 and were displayed and judged during the AMA-MSS Annual Meeting on June 10. Bellew's winning still-life painting, "The Standardized Patient," depicts the different parts of an artist's mannequin tied together with rope.

Bellew attributed the inspiration for her work to her first art professor.

"It was actually an assignment for my first painting class at UCF," she said. "So, I have to give a lot of credit to my professor, Carla Poindexter, who created this still-life in the art studio. The assignment was to use the still-life to make a surrealist type painting in the style of De Chirico."

Following those instructions, Bellew attempted and managed to create a "surreal environment" by depicting the body parts as a "foreboding architectural structure, like the looming towers in a De Chirico."

The 23-year-old Matlacha native has been interested in art her entire life.

As a child, she took some art classes in elementary school and was encouraged to continue painting and sketching by her older sister, Lynn.

As Bellew's academic career took off, so did her passion for art. In high school, she did one of her higher-level International Baccalaureate specializations in fine art and declared it as her first major in college.

During that time, she expressed a desire to design computer game graphics, but she decided to go on a different path and declared fine art as a minor instead.

However, it has not lessened her zeal for art.

"Art is the creation of something, whether [it] is physical or a moment, that evokes thoughts or feelings in another person as a form of communication," she said.

Bellew's interest in medicine also goes back to her childhood.

"My father is an emergency room physician, and I remember him explaining … the body [to me] as a child," she said. "In high school, I took anatomy and physiology over the summer at the local community college [and] I loved watching Discovery Health as far back as middle school."

For Bellew, art and medicine seem to go hand-in-hand. Because of her interest in both fields, her painting expresses the message that she wants to send to her future patients.

"In the context of the painting, I'd say that it is about empathizing with the feeling of patients that physicians [and] hospitals … are extremely intimidating and overwhelming," Bellew said. "As a patient myself, I have found it difficult to ask doctors questions and often feel unsure of what is going on with my own health care. You are always going to be the best advocate for your own well being."

Her approach to empathy concerning patients begs the question of her views on holistic medicine.

Bellew said she is "definitely interested in medicine as a way to promote optimal health as opposed to prolonging life."

Though Bellew is not yet sure about what kind of doctor she wants to be, she says that she will keep an open mind as she continues her studies in the College of Medicine.