Medical Illustration celebrate success, snapping up 17 awards for excellence in photography

Cardiff and Vale University Health Board’s Medical Illustration Department have been rewarded for an outstanding year at the Institute of Medical Illustrators awards (IMI).

The Medical Illustration Department won a total of 17 IMI awards, which recognise excellence in clinical photography, healthcare design and clinical video.

Surpassing the total of 12 won in 2019, the department snapped up eight bronze awards and seven silver awards. Abi Bird also won a gold award for her photograph of Polypoidal Choroidal Vasculopathy, taken on a widefield retinal camera.

• Bronze award winners: Abi Bird, Laura Mullen, Khris Swann, Joe Moody, Hannah Wilce and Lauren Price

• Silver award winners: Abi Bird, Jess Leonard and Hannah Wilce.

• Gold award winner: Abi Bird

Additionally, the Medical Illustration Department’s Head of Service, Bolette Jones was awarded the Norman K. Harrison Gold Medal. This is the IMI’s most prestigious award, presented annually at the discretion of the Chairman to a member considered to have made an outstanding contribution to the Institute or profession.

On announcing the award the Chairman described Bolette’s support for the IMI as ‘unstinting’, commenting that her efficient and effective contribution demands the institute’s admiration and respect.

Professor Stuart Walker, Interim Chief Executive of Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, said: “I’d like to share my congratulations with the Medical Illustration Team for their success at the Institute of Medical Illustrators Awards.

“The team are a highly specialised and skilled group of people who make an important contribution to the care of patients, and to have once again claimed a considerable number of IMI awards shows the outstanding level at which they are operating in their field.”