Art and design as a human activity does involve aesthetic, intellectual, and practical skills, although to become broadly significant, it should interact with the content in other fields, especially science, comparative education and industrial studies in Studio Art/Industrial Design/ Museum and Gallery Management. One of those fields is the field of Medicine. Here are two profound applications of fine art in the field of medicine

Art therapy

Art therepy can be defined as a mental health profession that uses the creative process of art making to improve and enhance the physical, mental and emotional well-being of individuals of all ages.Using Art to heal ilness is one of the great applications of Fine Art in the Medicine. 

Art therapy can be successfully applied to clients with physical, mental or emotional problems, diseases and disorders. Any type of visual art and art medium can be employed within the therapeutic process, including painting, drawing, sculpting, photography, and digital art.

[Psychiatric patient expressing themselves through traditional art at Butabiika source wellsmountainfoundation.org]

The following video illustrates how art can be used in the healing process of the children who were affected by the LRA war in Northern Uganda. Students were asked to draw their past as well as their future and the instructor watched their emotions as they draw their past and the future

For more information about how art is used to heal people, visit this blog http://www.arttherapyblog.com/

Medical llustration 

As a Fine Artist, your talent and skills will be greatly needed in comparative anatomy of human, and, birds and reptiles (mammals) sketching.The Medical field requires services of men and women with illustrative skills to draw medical illustrations such as those of muscles,veins,skeletons,body organs of living creatures to be used for study purposes.

Your fine art skills can make you a Medical illustrator who is a professional artist with advanced education in both the life sciences and visual communication. who collaborates with scientists, physicians, and other specialists to transform complex information into visual images that have the potential to communicate to broad audiences.The work of medical illustrators promotes education, research, patient care, public relations, and marketing efforts

Medical illustration is a small field with fewer than an estimated 2,000 trained practitioners in the world. Yet, medical illustration is also a diverse field with most professionals developing specialties. Some specialize by subject matter, such as surgery, veterinary medicine, or ophthalmology. Others specialize by media, such as computer animation or the making of three-dimensional models. Others specialize by targeting specific markets such as medical publishing, pharmaceutical advertising, or medical-legal work.

Medical illustrators develop considerable knowledge and expertise within their specialty and become an integral part of the production team. Some medical illustrators are authors and co-authors of textbooks or articles in which they've made major contributions to the content.

From the above we see that their is more to Art and it applications in medical field than anyone would have imagined. Courses Like Bachelor of Industrial and Fine Arts  at Makerere University prepare students for careers beyond their field of study as one of the goals of Education is to ensure that students transfer knowledge to areas where it is relevant.

So if you are an Artist and you are wondering where you can apply your skills beyond the Art Gallery, the applications above should surely make you look at Art from a broader perspective.So as you visualize tomorrow, value today, value that drawing class your attend as from those simple concepts, great careers are born