TCOM student puts a new twist on art thanks to COVID
In late March of 2020, the world was shut down due to COVID-19, social distancing
was part of everyone’s lexicon, and isolation was the new norm, so Anatalie Nguyen,
like everyone else, decided to try something new to break the boredom. Nguyen dabbled
in art before, but this time she did something different; it was digital, it was exclusively
on her phone. Six years and 430 pieces of digital artwork later, Nguyen’s new hobby
became an outlet for this student at UNT Health Fort Worth’s Texas College of Osteopathic
Medicine to relieve stress, build community and art with medicine.
“There is such a variety of art, there is the traditional aspect with pen and paper,
but for me, I never got into that,” said Nguyen. “In the isolation, I didn’t have
anything to do since we were locked inside, so I decided to try something new, digital
art. I downloaded a free app on my phone and started drawing on it. I stuck with it,
and I’ve been doing it for years now.”
While quarantine jump-started her interest in digital art, it was the pre-health program
at Byron Nelson High School in Trophy Club that piqued Nguyen’s interest in medicine.
She progressed to the University of North Texas, and at orientation, she heard about
the 3+4 program partnership between UNT and TCOM. The program offers qualified students
an accelerated pathway to earn a Bachelor of Arts and a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine
in just seven years. Nguyen knew that’s what she wanted to do, and there was also
one additional benefit.
“I got to skip the MCAT,” Nguyen said with a smile. “There is academic rigor, and
the schedule is more compressed, but it really helped my time management. Just juggling
my academics and volunteering helped me prepare for medical school.”
Volunteering. Alongside her digital art, academic work at UNT, and now TCOM, Nguyen
has also been a devoted volunteer at every stop. At UNT, she was part of Hearts for
the Homeless, a student-run pre-health organization. They provided medical screenings
to community members at the nearby shelter, Our Daily Bread, along with the Salvation
Army.
“My volunteering inspired me to be more passionate about serving people who don’t
have access to medicine,” said Nguyen. “We did a lot of medical screenings, blood
pressure screening, mental health screenings and provided access to those who don’t
have that ability to get these screenings. I really like the aspect of educating and
teaching people, and to hear a lot of the stories was difficult, because so many didn’t
have access to medicine or the means to get access.”
She was also active at Medical City Denton for three years as a volunteer, jumping
around into different departments from food and nutrition to delivering meals to patients.
That wasn’t all. She was part of an organization called “MotherToBaby” at UNT. Nguyen
was a volunteer with the group that provides personalized risk assessments on the
safety of medications, vaccines, and other exposures during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Nguyen staffed one of the phone banks and often got calls from frantic expectant mothers
worried about potentially harmful medicines. Nguyen was the voice on the other side
of the line that calmed the mothers to be.
“I was able to speak to them in a calm manner, so they themselves can calm down and
that really helped a lot,” she said. “Just being able to listen to them helped me
develop that empathy that I need going into health care.”
It should be no surprise that at TCOM, Nguyen is the Vice President of the Arts in
Medicine student interest group that goes to Cook Children’s Medical Center. There,
Nguyen and other TCOM students help diffuse tense moments for parents and their kids
with an art cart and activities for the children.
“It’s a scary environment, and our responsibility is just to reduce that stress and
to give them an outlet to not be so worried,” Nguyen said. “There were some encounters
where the parents came over and thanked us. We have been able to see the kids being
happy and distracted, and that really reduced everyone’s stress.”
If you are wondering how Nguyen, just the third accepted student from the UNT 3+4
program to be accepted to TCOM, has time for anything else, so do we. Nguyen still
couches her passion for digital art as just a hobby, but this hobby has taken some
intensive labor. Some of the creations she has made have taken hours, many, many hours.
A comic strip she created took 100 hours. A Christmas Secret Santa took 34 hours.
Her artwork is based a lot on anime, which gives her more freedom and flexibility
to create characters in their own style.
“You can use airbrushes, which mimic what you have in traditional art,” Nguyen said.
“For me, I do a lot of these artworks, like joining other people and doing different
challenges. It helps inspire my own art. Some take two or three hours, others take
10 hours, but it just depends on the detail and how complex they are.”
Nguyen likes keeping her digital artwork and medicine separate, for now. This past
year, there was a safety poster contest in her class, so she used one of the characters
that she created in her digital art for the poster and won second place. Nguyen sees
the benefits of mixing art and medicine for not just patients, but also providers.
“I do see a way to merge art and medicine, and osteopathic medical schools already
have the philosophy of taking care of the patient, mind, body, and spirit and not
looking at them based on their medical condition,” she said. “You can utilize art
to help people’s minds, spirits, and to recover. I do think that art is helpful for
us, for professional providers and patients in terms of taking care of their body,
mind, and spirit.”
Nguyen has an Instagram page that functions as her digital art gallery, which, six years later, has 430 pieces of art and counting. COVID-19 took a lot away from society, but Nguyen is giving back in every way she knows possible.