At the 28^th annual Art Days exhibition, the Hiebert Lounge at Boston University School of Medicine displayed a wide range of artwork by students, faculty and staff. Walking through the exhibit, I was awestruck to learn that many of my classmates and professors were painters, poets or sculptors.

Along the backside of the lounge hung two majestic landscape oil paintings. Glancing over at “Studio from the Street”, a painting illustrating the beauty of Italy’s narrow streets, I realized the artist was none other than our radiology professor, Dr. Kitt Shaffer. Eager to learn more about Dr. Shaffer’s artwork, I got the chance to sit and talk to her about her art background and how art has influenced her roles as a physician and educator. Dr. Shaffer received her medical degree in 1983 from Tufts University, and completed residency in New England Medical Center in 1988. She also holds a PhD in anatomy from the University of Kansas. She completed her undergraduate education in Biology at Kansas State University.

SD: How did you first get introduced to art?

Dr. Shaffer: I come from a very artsy background. Although none of my relatives are professional artists, my mother was always very crafty. She had done lots of furniture refinishing, sewing and all sorts of decorative things. All of my siblings and I have taken up different forms of visual arts throughout our lives. I have painted since I was little, and throughout my life I’ve taken up different forms of art. One of the first things I became interested in was jewelry making when I was in junior high. Since then I’ve done some ceramics, a lot of drawing, and of course painting.

SD: Were you able to continue making art in college, medical school and residency?

Dr. Shaffer: When I went to college I knew I wanted to go to medical school, but I also didn’t want to give up art. So, I minored in in Visual Arts! I was able to take lots of classes in painting and drawing. But in medical school, I didn’t seem to have the time to do any art and it felt bad for my psyche. I wish that in medical school I had tried to start with something a little smaller. I was always hung up on doing things that required extra resources like jewelry making or paintings. I wish I had thought about watercolor, pastels, colored pencils, things you can carry in your pocket, do in a moment spare time, or go out in the yard and do. I feel like I would have gotten a lot of out of that. Expressing your creativity is a way of making yourself a more complete person.

At the same time, medical school is such a trial by fire and you need to give yourself permission to really focus on your studies. There will be times when you realistically can’t do anything else. Eventually, you will find yourself being more comfortable and efficient with your time.

During residency when my husband and I were taking a big trip to Paris, I decided to buy a tiny sketchpad and invest in colored pencils and pastels, all of which were small enough for me to take around while traveling. I did all these great drawings in France and I was so excited about it! Now, anywhere I go I always take drawing materials so I can draw.

SD: Personally, I see myself using concepts I’ve learned from art in my everyday life as a student. In what ways do you use principles from art in your day-to-day life?

Dr. Shaffer: Drawing is very crucial to the way I teach. When I’m trying to explain a structure on an image, it is often insufficient to point to something with an arrow or cursor, especially because the image is often a shape that’s hard to comprehend. A lot of times its more effective to outline or color something in to create the whole shape. I use this method a lot when I’m doing interactive sessions with medical students, PA students and residents. I’m either drawing on images in real time or creating an interactive website that students can look at ahead of time.

I’ve been involved in several teaching sessions involving Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) where we do drawing sessions with students, spend time in museums looking at pieces from different perspectives, and more. I think sometimes people have a feeling that they can’t draw and have a bias that they can’t draw. To them, drawing seems like magic. They may think, “If I haven’t drawn all my life, how can I suddenly start now?” I’ve done drawing exercises with so many people like this, and people are amazed at how they can draw if they give themselves permission to not be perfect.

With residents we do a really fun drawing exercise that is especially good for people who might be a little embarrassed about their drawing skills. We go to a museum where there are three-dimensional sculptures that you can walk all the way around and distribute students around the sculptures. We ask each student to draw what the sculpture looks like from where they are standing.  Then the students trade their drawing with someone else. Eventually, you are able to see the sculptures from different perspectives.

SD: Radiology seems to be a very visually engaging field. Do you find yourself using art in your profession as a Radiologist?

Dr. Shaffer:  At the 2014 national Radiology Society of North America meeting, a couple of my colleagues and I got together and created a Radiology poster full of radiological educational art!

I took CT scans of plants. X-Rays of plants do not come out well because the beams are too powerful. So instead, I used a mammography machine, which has a less penetrating beam, and the images came out beautifully! I decided to use flowers because they are organic forms that are irregular and interesting, which would look pretty neat on a CT scan. I figured since mammography is used to design a soft part of the body without any bones, I would be able to use it to capture flowers. I’ve seen some others make flower stems via CT and use contrast material to then take an image. After bringing the poster to the conference, I got a lot of great feedback from my colleagues. At our following conferences, I saw the poster on a huge banner that was advertised.

Since then, I’ve been encouraging more and more of my colleagues to express their own forms of creativity. We’ve had other Radiologists present their visual arts at conferences. We’ve even started art competitions for best paintings and best drawings at our conferences!

Image 1: Dr. Kitt Shaffer, MD, PhD
Image 2: 28^th Annual Art Days at BUSM, Dr. Shaffer’s paintings on the right
Image 3: Dr. Shaffer’s studio in Italy
Image 4: “Rose CT”, radiograph and CT of rose, altered in Photoshop, 2014 (on the left)
Image 5: “Callas in Regression”, radiograph of calla lilies, altered in Photoshop, 2014 (on the top right)
Image 6: Heart Anatomy Model made by Dr. Shaffer (on the bottom right)