The Institute of Medical Illustrators' 35th Annual Conference, Derby, September 11-13, 2002

The 35th Annual IMI Conference was held at the Mickleover Court Hotel in Derby and, as has become standard practice, opened after lunch on Wednesday. The first session was chaired by IMI Chairman Carol Fleming who introduced Dr Susan Hill, the keynote speaker. Dr Hill had just taken up appointment as the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) and gave the delegates an update on the Healthcare Scientists project as well as an insight into her philosophy as the CSO. Dr Hill’s presentation set the theme for the session and she was followed by Martin Johns who took us through the latest on consent and confidentiality. Next was Jane Tovey who did a short presentation about Standards Audits. Jane is involved in the IMI Standards Pilot Scheme and a number of departments have already put themselves forward to participate in an audit of their policies and procedures. Delegates were asked to take part in a short exercise to assess their own department policies. The results seemed sketchy and in some cases varied depending upon whether it was managers or staff at the coal face answering the questions. Madeleine Borg spoke on ‘Clinical Governance’, and David Bryson gave us an insight into ‘Learning together, Working together’ Finally Simon Brown gave a presentation entitled ‘Whither Medical Illustration?’ where he argued that we are in danger of becoming ‘jacks of all trades’. Thursday morning started with the ‘New Voices in Medical Illustration’. This session has now become one of the highlights of the scientific programme, consisting of ten-minute presentations, many drawn from the BSc students’ final projects. This year was a little disappointing in terms of numbers of papers, but not in terms of quality and variety of presentations. The first speaker, Carolyn Bray, focused her attentions on the topic of body mapping in clinical photography. This was of particular interest to departments that undertake this type of photography and was an account of how her department had set about examining their current practice and made changes based on customer feedback. Next was Sarah Murfin who spoke about her personal experience of pre-eclampsia and how health professionals can assist in the design of patient information. Peter Murray then continued the session with a talk about the ‘Comparison of quality schemes’. Kellie Pearson’s presentation was entitled ‘The second skeleton’, a look at the condition fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. The session was concluded by Norm Barker (not a ‘New Voice’ presentation) with an interesting and beautifully-illustrated talk about natural science photography. After coffee, Ed Bremner began the next plenary session with the topic of ‘Asset management’ during which he examined the importance of managing visual digital assets (image storage, databasing and retrieval). Mike Nelson then entertained us for twenty minutes relating the establishment of Medical Illustration UK Ltd. – effectively a management buy-out. Although not for everybody, it was interesting to hear about his department’s development into the commercial world. Next was a presentation entitled ‘Benchmarking – another can of worms’, from Keith Bellamy. Keith informed us of the latest IMI initiative to try and identify the relationship between medical illustration workload and hospital case-mix. Simon Dove from the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital discussed his department in relation to obtaining the Charter Mark award. Finally in this session, David Smithson gave an introduction to the IMI Archive issuing a heartfelt plea to fellow members to supply him with much-needed images. After another generous lunch, the afternoon session consisted of a wide range of topics of interest across the board. Sean Brennan gave the delegates an update on the EPR project; not much progress it seems since he first spoke to us on the topic several years ago. Shirley Smith and her team introduced the delegates to Diabeta3, a commercial clinical information system developed at St Thomas’ Hospital to manage the diabetic retinopathy screening programme. Richard Cragg delivered an overview of the use of indocyanine green dye, tracing its early history and ‘rediscovery’ since digital imaging. Ophthalmologist Mike Briggs gave a very informative talk on age-related macular degeneration and the use of photodynamic therapy to treat the condition. The next session, chaired by Madeleine Borg, began with Jason Candlin who talked of the problems caused in his department by the introduction of the NHS identity and logo. This has ultimately resulted in a reduction of workload from the administration and a concentration of support for clinical practice. Then there was a slight alteration in the scheduled plan due to a technical hitch. Sophie Jones saved the day by stepping in early with her talk about ‘Telemedicine in acute plastic trauma’. An interesting insight into how a small group of clinicians set up a very focused telemedicine project. Having sorted out the computer gremlins, Jon Rimmer gave an entertaining talk about the relationship of design and computer usability. The Journal of Audiovisual Media in Medicine, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 36–38