Students’ x-ray artwork develops into exhibit and placement in Rowan hospital

Karen [email protected] SALISBURY — There are some new x-rays in the radiology department at Novant Health Rowan Medical Center, but they aren’t your typical ones.

These x-rays are pieces of art done by the radiology students at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College who have clinicals at the local hospital, and three of those pieces of artwork were selected to be hung on the walls in the outpatient area of the imaging department.The idea to try doing something like this was the brainchild of Kendra Bowman, radiology manager at the hospital.She knew that x-ray art existed and has been around for a long time and while it might exist in the healthcare system, she said she had never seen it before.



She had been thinking about doing this for a long time she added, and therefore, when Bowman came to Novant Health Rowan Medical Center, which was about a year and a half ago, she said, she met Kelly McCowan, medical imaging instructor at RCCC, and shared the idea of x-ray art with her and that she wanted to capture that art in the department.“I just knew that it was time, and she (McCowan) just really took the idea and ran with it,” Bowman said.McCowan said that “the students created over 30 individualized images of objects that represented their life.

”The three selected pieces include a completed craft project made of bottle caps and in the shape of a flower by Emma Owens, and the other two are different kinds of seashells, one a clam shell by Hannah Cole and the other a conch shell by Heather Fulk.The pieces of art were enlarged thanks to lots of digital capabilities, said Bowman. And she has considered placing the original pieces of art next to the x-rayed versions, but she’s not sure at this time, noting that for now, she is “loving the minimalistic x-ray pieces, so I don’t know.

”Bowman expressed how thankful she was because McCowan’s entire class produced numerous pieces from which she selected those three, which have found their home on the walls in the hospital.She wanted to stay with the outpatient area in her placement of the art and focus on patient satisfaction. Bowman indicated the entrance where patients come in and said that her intent for this first phase is to really have “an impact on this main hallway and then they could branch off, because regardless if they are nuclear medicine, ultrasound, CT, diagnostic, they are all coming down this hallway,” she said.

Bowan said that she “would love for this to expand throughout radiology, we are a very large department. I would love to see other Novant facilities, especially the ones with our pediatric units to really take this on because some of the x-rayed art was geared toward children.”She said there were many other wonderful pieces of artwork that would accent a pediatric area, including one that was of a plastic toy dinosaur.

“It just looked amazing, and it would look very good in a pediatric unit. So we’re really hoping that this is going to take off for a lot of our facilities, especially ones with our pediatric units such as PMC,” she said.McCowan, who teaches second year students, said that she and Shannon Bare and Robyn Murray, who are also course instructors and teach first year students, created lab assignments for two levels of students on their campus.

“The three of us worked closely with the students during labs overseeing the x-ray exposures. The lab projects focused on different materials, thicknesses and technical factors to create images with proper brightness and contrast levels,” she said.Owens, a senior at RCCC, said when she learned of the project, she first started thinking about what would show up in an x-ray.

“In our education, we learn about what will show, what’s radiopaque and what’s radiolucent. So everybody started brainstorming ideas. We were thinking this is so cool, there are so many routes that we could go through and some people, like me, decided to go with an already done craft.

Some people went with nature. And so we all kind of collaborated and bounced ideas off each other.”Crafts are not new to Owens as she has done this for much of her life and worked with her great-grandmother, Mary Ruth Owens, with crafts helping be her hands, noting that she has problems with her hands.

And she herself has been involved with art throughout high school.“Art was my thing in high school and was very much a part of that culture,’” she said.Once the subject was chosen, Owens said they went into the x-ray rooms at school, noting there are two different kinds of x-ray machines, a portable one and tubes that are mounted in the rooms, which is the one she selected.

She said there is an imaging plate that captures the image and some of the students “had plants sitting up, some people had it flat on the table with the actual tube in the room. I did that,” she noted, “and then we adjusted the values on the image that make it lighter, darker, whatever looked the best. We really got to experiment with all the different parts of x-ray.

”Owens’ piece of x-ray art began as bottle caps that were squeezed into petal shapes. When she was initially trying to decide what to do for this school assignment and thinking about helping her great-grandmother, she said, “this could be meaningful, it could be cool and it will show up really well on x-rays.”Owens said she took about three x-rays with the first x-ray starting out super low, which turned out very light.

She bumped it up and got it darker until about the third time it was where she wanted it, taking maybe 10-15 minutes.In the selection process, Bowman said she didn’t know beforehand who did any of the pieces. They each now have the names of the students who did them and the year they were done.

It is her goal for this project to continue with next year’s and to put it in their hands “because it gives them the opportunity to really learn about exposure and the variables of exposure because everything is dependent upon the density, the density of a shell is going to be different than the density of a flower. So, as a student it’s going to help them be able to understand and manipulate those variables to create that art.”As a result of the x-ray art that was produced, the college displayed them, plus the students led in making calendars using the artwork.

“We were so impressed with the results, that I reached out to the college’s art department,” said McCowan, “and they hosted an Art of X-ray exhibit on our North campus in February. The student’s x-ray artwork was also on display at the NCSRT conference in Cherokee last week.”Gary Blabon, president of Novant Health Rowan Medical Center and a trustee at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, said, “I love the work that we get to do at Rowan-Cabarrus and seeing these wonderful young minds and the work that they’re doing.

”Blabon said he would not have thought about doing something like this art, and was glad that Bowman did. He said that she is a fantastic leader pointing out that “the ideas she’s brought to us to improve our patient experience, our patient care, the work that she’s doing with her team, being creative, bringing ideas of creativity out in the team, and then to see this, just allowing these young people to use this as a means of expression for them in a field that they’re going into, it’s just absolutely amazing.”Looking at the pieces of artwork, Blabon said he didn’t realize the flower was actually bottle caps until he took a closer look.

“It looks like a sunflower to me,” he said as he told Owens she did a great job. “It’s very impactful,” he said, adding that it makes him proud.There are other items that Bowman said she would like to do and quickly said she knew they couldn’t do this on live animals but added that one of the students had an alligator head that one can buy at the beach and they did that for their project.

“That is one of the pieces I would love to put at the pediatric unit,” she said. “Pieces where the patients can remember and talk about and just kind of remember that experience of something new and neat.”Blabon asked Owens if she showed her piece of art to her great-grandmother, and if so, what did she say.

Owens said she did and her response was, “oh my goodness.” She was “overjoyed about it,” she added, and Owens also purchased one of the calendars for her. Graduation is coming up soon as Owens said she finishes on May 16 and then a couple weeks later would be starting work at the hospital, doing x-rays.

In speaking of the x-ray art project, Owens said that by “them offering to do this and wanting the students to have participation, we have, as a class, felt very welcomed here, so we really appreciate them doing this.”McCowan added her appreciation for the joint effort as she said, “I feel having the student’s x-ray art become a fixture of the Novant Rowan Imaging department represents the importance of collaboration between the college and the medical center. We feel honored by the sentiment and thankful for such a supporting partnership.

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