Photography an important tool in the medical field – Medical Photographer

Mr Richard Nana Kissi Yeboah, a medical photographer has said that photography is an important tool in the medical field and can help in the diagnosis and treatment of patients.

Mr Yeboah in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Tema said patient imaging technicians (medical photographers) must have the requisite skills in taking detailed pictures of patients to aid doctors, surgeons, and other medical officers in the examination of a client.

He said, “We use pictures as an assessment instrument before and after to understand the condition of a patient, this helps in the valuation of the outcome of a surgery for instance.”

He added that for nutrition clinics, for instant, the pictures are used to tell the weight, adding that the images could be compared to see if there was a change in the weight of children suffering from malnutrition.

He revealed that even though photographers abound in Ghana, those in the medical field were few and encouraged photographers to concentrate on the events, beauty, and glamour photo takings and to explore other areas such as the medical field.

Mr Yeboah who has been a medical photographer for Operation Smile Ghana since 2017 said he loves telling stories with pictures, adding that he became interested in the medical field through a doctor friend, and ventured into it.

He said Operation Smile Ghana, therefore, brought in experts to train him to be able to go to the theatre rooms to take pictures during surgeries.

He said anyone who wants to venture into the field must be ready to learn the technicalities of photography and medicine as that would empower the photographer to capture the appropriate images for assessment.

He said to guarantee that the images were well kept for assessment, the task also entailed creating folders for each patient and arranging the pictures to follow a sequence of activities.

Mr Yeboah said taking pictures of children with medical issues such as cleft lips and cleft palate was challenging and therefore the need to develop the patience and art of handling and loving children to be successful in the field.

“Since the kids are often afraid when they see a photographer with the camera, one has to develop technics of calming them down by creating a friendly atmosphere and providing them with toys and other things they like to draw their attention for the pictures to be taken,” he said.

Medical Photography has been defined by Wikipedia as a specialized area of photography that concerns itself with the documentation of the clinical presentation of the patient, medical and surgical procedures, medical devices, and specimens from the autopsy.

It requires a high level of technical skill to present the photograph free from misleading information that may cause misinterpretation. The pictures are used in clinical documentation, and research, among others.

GNA