How clinical photography can help a student
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In our previous episode we discussed how clinical photography could help in the growth of a private practice. However, if you are a medical or dental student listen to this episode till the end

In this episode we will discuss how clinical photography or documentation can help a student stand out of the crowd.

But before that we will discuss WHEN a student must start documentation?

A student must start documentation from the first year of medical or dental college even if it is non clinical.
When you systematically record all preclinical work
and keep a record of all images topic wise or subject wise
it will be easy for you to refer to it during exams.
Do not underestimate the use of images because they will help you in many ways.
I remember I used to be bad in histology. But I had taken images of all the slides through the microscope.
The most useful images were of the gross slides.
I know this is cheating but
every slide had some unique mark on it for example the slide of gnarled enamel was broken from 1 corner in a unique wavy pattern.
So during spotting exams I used to take a look at all slides gross images during my preparations.
During exam even before I looked through the microscope I knew
what the slide was about.
So in a way the gross side images helped me reinforce that I was right.

The staff obviously outsmarted us by keeping a complete new set of slides which we had never seen before.

Has this every happened to you as well?

I'm not saying that we must depend completely on the gross slide appearance . Please dont get me wrong…

So I hope you can understand that documentation can be helpful even if you are in the 1st year of your graduate program.




Let us now discuss the various ways in which documentation can help you as a student in medical / dental field.

Images of specimens - I remember during the dissection it was very difficult to see all the nerves / blood vessels clearly cause of a large number of people. If you take images while you learn it will not only help you but even your colleagues. Teach your friends Meme when friends teach …

Demo videos of procedures during bio chemistry or physiology or even how to give anesthesia etc Remember you dont have to be perfect and edit for high end videos. Content is king so do not worry about video presentation at least during the initial stages.

If you are allowed to you can take images during surgeries please do that. Its gonna be extremely helpful. Make sure you follow all aseptic procedures. We have a video on how to maintain asepsis while documenting a surgery on our YouTube channel DPS
You can check out the link in this episodes description

You can maintain a Blog of your journey in the medical / dental field. You can do that on insta or YT and you can get really famous for that if you are consistent with what you post.

Thesis seminars & other literary work Publications in Text / articles
Paper presentations + posters & apply for competitions
There is a clear educational benefit of multimedia educational presentations.
Called by staff / PG students for documentation .It can have its own benefits . They will help you in return. The college will be proud of you. I have seen this article and I believe you must read it too.
Its published as "Medical School Reaps the Benefits of Student’s Passion for Photography” The student in this article is Dr. Chea who was in the 2nd year at the University of Connecticut when the article was published. He loves to do photography and he made his university proud.
You could be hired to document cases. Believe me if you wont get paid someone else will.. So just go for it Cause general photographers dont know much and they are not as good as you. It could be a good Source of income & may be you can Pay ur own fees or just get some extra money for spending.
Applying for a job as an evidence of work you have done . Images of patients / x rays. I just did a survey about the recent scenarios in employment in dentistry. In that 36% dentist agreed to pay more than the average salary if the applicant knew how to do clinical photography. How important is that??? So even after you finish graduation or post grad this can be an asset to get you a good source of income. I Myself have referred my course delegates to many clinicians who wanted someone to document their operative cases. Believe me they earned a good amount of money in that.
Grow into wildlife / portrait / food / wedding
Drones niche
Make a video for your own college
Intercollege photography competitions

Get famous !!