Medical Animation News

It's no secret that television personality and cardiothoracic surgeon Mehmet Oz loves to use medical animation clips to explain diseases and clinical concepts. They regularly appear on his daytime TV show. In a recent interview, Dr. Oz directly addressed the utility of a good medical visualization.

Since the inception of his hour-long TV spot, The Dr. Oz Show, the 51-year-old Turkish-American physician has instructed audiences on a wide array of medical topics, from weight gain and coronary artery disease (CAD) to cancer and strokes.

Recently, he sat down with C21Media's Michael Pickard to talk about having the rather unique profession of television health commentator.

Dr. Oz explained that discussions of personal wellness can fluctuate greatly depending on the nation, culture or even individual experience coming into play.

"Health is a very personal endeavor," he said, quoted by the news source. The doctor noted that people in, say, China will respond very differently to a medical topic than individuals in the UK or the U.S.

So if disparate television audiences will react to a health discussion in unique ways, how can he communicate clinical topics in a universal fashion? Dr. Oz pointed to the medical animation as one of his prized solutions.

"You can take those same messages into every local format and they still work," he told Pickard. "If I make a [medical] animation showing that heart disease is reversible, you want to see that animation in every country in the world. That's biological reality... And if I can give it to you in a way that's playful and fun, it makes it that much easier to adapt it to a local environment."

His mention of heart disease is particularly apt, since Dr. Oz recently devoted a lengthy Discovery Fit & Health web clip to CAD, using a 3D medical animation to get his point across.

In the video, a 3D animation depicts a beating heart. The clip zooms in on a single blocked blood vessel on the surface of the cardiac muscle. Dr. Oz explains that certain unhealthy lifestyle factors, like smoking or eating processed foods, can lead to the buildup of arterial plaque in the heart's arteries.

Also, in one of the more popular episodes of his daytime talk show, Dr. Oz used custom-made medical animations to explain a radical surgery for lip cancer.

Amerra provides custom medical animations, medical illustrations and interactive medical software. For additional information please contact us at 1.888.9AMERRA or e-mail info@amerra.com.