Future Doctors Study Anatomy Through Sculpture at LCAD

Laguna College of Art + Design recently welcomed medical students from the UC Irvine School of Medicine to campus for a sculpture workshop led by Brittany Ryan, LCAD faculty member and Sculpture Department Coordinator. The session asked a deceptively simple question of its participants: what happens when future doctors stop diagramming the body and start building it by hand?

Working in clay, the students, first-years through fourth-years, spent the session modeling the human figure from the ground up, translating anatomy they knew clinically into something they had to shape with their hands. The workshop was part of “Clay Connections,” a UCI Medical Humanities series that invites students to encounter the body as form as well as function.

“We wanted to give an opportunity for them to think about our bodies, human bodies, in so many different ways,” said Juliet McMullin, UCI’s Director for Medical Humanities and Arts.

For the students, the shift from chart to clay was the point. “I’m learning a lot about anatomy from a different perspective,” said Zoe Adams, a third-year student studying to become a general surgeon, who helped pitch the series. She described the work as looking at bodies in a new way, “not just medically,” and building understanding, as she put it, from the ground up.

At LCAD, students are trained as critical thinkers and creative problem-solvers, grounded in the timeless, foundational skills that let them work across disciplines and, on days like this one, across professions.