Med school candyman plays around with body parts
Mike McCormick, a 2nd year Medical Student at the University of Glasgow, started to play around with candy to learn anatomy, shared some stuff with his friends – and soon had thousands of followers.
- Twitter: @CandyAnatomy
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/candyanatomy/
Tell us about the Candy Anatomy project!
So CandyAnatomy is my ridiculous project. I am now a 2nd year medical student. Previously, I did a degree in physiology at the University of Edinburgh, but then took 5 years out of academia. I developed the images as a means to remembering different systems and anatomy as an educational procrastination. I felt if I could surround myself with medicine, then I would ultimately absorb more information. Also just for the fun of showing my friends how nerdy I was becoming, I soon noticed that others in my university were using the images for revision. So I created a dedicated instagram and twitter account and I was blown away by the response. I now have an international following of nearly twenty thousand people, so I am always trying to one-up the previous image to keep people interested. It’s a lot of fun!
Why should this concern the young scientist or engineer?
I suppose it’s just a fun way to remind yourself of certain anatomical systems without thinking to hard about it. All recall is good recall! And I find myself that I remember aspects of organs etc because of what candy/colour I used to create it. Nice when it enters your mind during an exam! Also I hope it gets people thinking more about science regardless of background. My next project is hopefully going to involve an exhibition of my work in a Children’s Hospital as a way of entertaining the young patients whilst encouraging learning about the human body.
Give three pieces of advice to the science or tech person who wants to reach out to the world with a new genre!
Hmm tough one! Well it took me a long time to get into Medical School because of one poorer grade at high school, and a brain injury 5 years ago. But I got there in the end through constant perseverance, so I would probably say just keep pushing onwards and it’s amazing where you can get to after all the little steps.
Secondly, for science, just be as nerdy as you can be! The more information you can cram in your head the better, the only result will be making you better at your job in the long run!
Thirdly, don’t forget your creativity. It can be so rewarding to do and you won’t be the only one who will enjoy it. It’s awesome to see something ridiculous you invented become to well received in different countries, languages and professions!
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