By Rebecca A. Doyle
Although the Biomedical Communications (BMC) unit was formed little more than 10 years ago, medical illustration services at the Medical School began around 1920.
Then, according to Gerald P. Hodge, professor emeritus of medical and biological illustration, two illustrators comprised the entire staff and did work only for the Medical School.
Now, Biomedical Communications is housed in the old Northern Brewery, a historic building on Jones Drive. It has branches in University Hospital and the Kresge III Building, and a pick-up/drop-off site at the North Campus Commons.
Services have expanded to include graphic design, writing and layout for pamphlets, brochures and posters; film and slide processing; videotaping and editing; electronic imaging; studio and on-location photography; and multimedia production. The service area has expanded to include the entire campus.
“BMC is a totally self-supporting University of Michigan service unit,” says Director Stewart L. White. “It is our goal to make working with BMC the most satisfying service unit experience you have ever had.”
Partial funding for operations that had formerly been supplied by the Medical School began to diminish in 1982 and ceased entirely in 1990. White says that increasing the services the unit offers and making sure they are provided quickly is how BMC stays competitive.
That philosophy is reflected by nearly 50 staff artists and specialty technicians who are dedicated to providing what
the customer wants in the most timely manner.
Videotapes released earlier this year to help faculty and administrators better understand the needs faced by students and staff with disabilities were produced by Patrick J. Murphy, senior producer/director at the video technology facility, and have been extremely useful and well-received, says Brian L. Clapham. Clapham, who is the University’s coordinator for the Americans with Disabilities Act, worked with BMC to produce Focus on Abilities: The ADA at the University of Michigan, a videotape depicting accommodations made at the University for persons with disabilities.
“It turned out even better than I had hoped for,” he says. “We met and told them what we wanted to accomplish, identified the issues and the themes, then they put it into a script. Their advice helped a lot in making it flow well and cover a lot of the issues we wanted to cover in 20 minutes. What we have now is comparable in quality to anything produced nationally.”
Keeping up with technology is one of the most difficult things BMC has had to deal with, according to White. As computer programs are upgraded, all the latest ones must be available in his unit.
“We support Delta Graph, Freehand, Illustrator, MacDraw Pro, Persuasion, PowerPoint, Photoshop, Pagemaker and Quark Express for the Macintosh. We support Harvard Graphics, PowerPoint, Persuasion, Applause Autumn, Pagemaker, Mirage, Pixie, Freelance Plus, Lumena and Lotus 1-2-3 for IBM-compatible machines,” says White. “It’s a lot to keep up with.”
In January, White will add to BMC’s impressive high-technology array the ability to transfer images to photo CD. As a service unit, they were approached by the Information Technology Division and asked to look into providing photo CD services. Several clients have already expressed interest in archiving some of their images on photo CD.
Providing design, photographic and video services is one business in which you can’t sit still if you want to survive, White notes. Constantly upgrading software and adding new technology as campus needs increase requires attention to budget issues.
But the “20 or 30 awards” White says BMC designers and artists have won for the unit make keeping up with the times a worthwhile effort. Among those he says mean the most to his staff are awards from the International Film and Video Festival of New York, Chicago International Film Festival, National Educational Film and Video Festival, Association of Visual Communicators, Health Sciences Communications Association, American Medical Writers Association, Health Research Ontario and the John Muir Medical Film Festival.
