Blending Art, Medicine and Charity

Ana Velez, MD, FACP, joins Paul Sax, MD, FIDSA, to share how her passion for art fuels her work in infectious diseases, from teaching through medical illustrations to using her art to give back to the ID community. Dr. Velez reveals the inspirations behind her work and how creativity brings new meaning to medicine. She also discusses her latest series of paintings that she is donating to the IDSA Foundation's Art Auction.

Bid now to own one of Dr. Velez's paintings: https://givebutter.com/c/pclXSb/auction

Transcript

Paul Sax: [00:00:14] Hello, this is Paul Sax. I'm Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Infectious Diseases. And welcome to the Let's Talk ID podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Ana Velez, an ID doctor and professor of medicine at the University of South Florida and the Moffitt Cancer Center. I invited her on because, unusual among us ID doctors, she's a remarkably talented artist, and she has generously donated several of her originals to the IDSA Foundation for auction. Ana, welcome.

Ana Velez: [00:00:42] Thank you so much, Paul, and thank you so much for inviting me. It is an honor to be here.

Paul Sax: [00:00:48] Great. So let's start by having you tell us your story. You grew up in Medellin, Colombia, and you're quoted to say that even as a child, you couldn't resist filling a blank page with color. Can you take us back to those early days? What first drew you to art?

Ana Velez: [00:01:02] Yes. I don't remember exactly the moment. I can only tell you that since the moment I hold a pen. I held a pen when I was a child. I start drawing, and I remember sitting in the back of the room, first grade, looking at the window, not paying attention to what the teacher was saying, but so busy filling all the papers of my notebook with drawings.

Paul Sax: [00:01:33] Did your parents or your siblings have artistic inklings as well?

Ana Velez: [00:01:39] [laughs] You know, my father did, but I only discovered that as I grew up and I started teaching him, and he was amazing. And also he learned how to make jewelry. And he later created a painting and he put there to my teacher. It was so lovely.

Paul Sax: [00:01:58] Art was obviously a focus of yours as a child. How did that love carry forward as you became a physician? Why the transition?

Ana Velez: [00:02:07] Yeah. What happens is that I had more love to art than to school activities, to be honest with you. But then when I started studying biology, I discovered that I too like biology, as I was, uh, sometimes not doing great in my grades because I was drawing. My father asked me if you want our support and if you want to join to our classes, you really need to do better in school. And that's how I ended up doing both. And my love to biology and science continued to grow, but my love for art never left.

Paul Sax: [00:02:50] You must have had some important influences or teachers or mentors in art growing up. Who were they?

Ana Velez: [00:02:57] Yes. When I was 13, I joined an art academy. A private art academy in Medellin. Academia de Arte de Antonio Herrera, who was the first artist that I met in person. He became almost like a father for me. I think I was the youngest student and he was always giving me advice from art to the boyfriends and anything.

Paul Sax: [00:03:23] You eventually ended up in medical school. Anyone there kind of see this little special thing about you and help you? Or were they totally focused on your your medical training.

Ana Velez: [00:03:33] In med school in Medellin? All of them were more focused in medicine. I had a good friend whose mother owned a gallery and we became good friends. But it was mostly when I joined the fellowship, when I met my great mentor for both infectious diseases and art in medicine.

Paul Sax: [00:03:55] And who is that?

Ana Velez: [00:03:56] Dr. John Sinnott. At that time he was the division director. Then he became the chair of medicine at USF. And I remember when I had the interview for the fellowship, that interview lasted for two hours. And most of it, we were talking about art and photography. That's his hobby. And he was the one who gave me ideas of joining art and medicine, particularly infectious diseases.

Paul Sax: [00:04:26] That's great to have someone now that your career was advancing to support your passions, that's terrific, because you can always have this as something you do alongside your ID career.

Ana Velez: [00:04:36] Yeah, that was a fascinating times. And it continued to grow these two paths together. As I am growing into these two things, I find more joy in my daily practice.

Paul Sax: [00:04:51] When you look around for inspiration about what you're going to paint or draw next. Where do you find those inspirations?

Ana Velez: [00:04:59] You know, Paul, this is such an interesting question. And I tell you, anything inspires me. Anything from seeing a zygomycete in the microscope that's dying blue with these shapes of the hyphae to a particular moment with a patient or a colleague or one of my kids asking me for a Formula One painting to put on the wall. So. [laughs] And a sunset, or one picture, or even a landscape, or still life of a nachos with margarita. Thinking of Friday afternoon. So anything.

Paul Sax: [00:05:40] Well, you know, it's interesting. It reminds me of a Nora Ephron. She's a writer. She died. But she was a wonderful, very successful comic writer and also a director. And she grew up in an artistic family of other writers. And she remembers that her mother used to tell her, look, everything is copy. Meaning that, you know, everything is potentially a source of inspiration when you're an artist.

Ana Velez: [00:06:04] I agree with that is I don't say is a particular, let's say, portraits, which I really love that too. But it's not just, okay, I'm only going to do portraits is anything that inspires you. And then you find the technique and the colors that matches that inspiration.

Paul Sax: [00:06:24] One thing I've read when I did my research for this interview is that you may recognized in yourself, a different learning style from other people. How do you adapt that to your current role as a teacher?

Ana Velez: [00:06:37] And that is such a great question because I remember growing up feeling so different, especially in med school, from the other students. They will be so eloquent when they will elaborate the ideas or present a case. Days, my thought process was a bit more disorganized and more. I had a lot of images and it was for me very difficult to describe them. And then I had to train my brain, if you will, to be more like them. But at the same time, I never lost that other area of the brain. So it's just a continuing learning. And then after I became an educator, I found others with the same type of learning or way to express ideas.

Paul Sax: [00:07:29] Learning more with graphics or design and figures than with words?

Ana Velez: [00:07:34] Correct. And when I found that, I realized once I became aware of that, I realized I could become a better teacher by extrapolating that to these students that have different styles of learning.

Paul Sax: [00:07:49] So can you give us a specific story, or an example of a painting or metaphor that explains a complicated concept. I mean, antibiotic mechanisms or pathogen morphology or something?

Ana Velez: [00:08:01] Yeah. And actually you can see it in the wall right there. I am trying to teach the resident how the different antifungals work. So I am drawing a figure of a fungi. And it has a wall and it has a membrane and it has the nuclei. I am teaching them the different targets of echinocandins azoles and polyenes. So with different colors you may not see it well as far.

Paul Sax: [00:08:33] I'm going to say this is an audio only podcast, so nobody's seeing it. But I do like the description and I can see it actually. So just you and I can see the figure, but people can imagine in their mind's eye there's a very nice figure of a fungal structure in Ana's background, and I'm sure that was a very effective teaching tool.

Paul Sax: [00:08:53] So I am now going to say that I've looked at many of your paintings. Some of the ones that struck me were the ones. Because of my area of specialty in focus, were the ones about HIV. And one of them, 1982, was the number that showed up in one of them. What was that all about?

Ana Velez: [00:09:11] The paintings you're talking about is the collection of paintings that I will be donating to the IDSA Foundation, and will be available for the IDWeek 2025. That idea started with when my mentor, Doctor Sinnott, approached me last year after the first set of paintings that were donated for IDWeek at IDSA Foundation, and he asked me, have you thought about painting retroviruses? And then I was like, oh, that's very interesting. Eventually I listened to an audio podcast by USF. The name of the podcast is Contagion Podcast by USF. They interview Dr. Robert Gallo. He recently joined USF last year. He talks about the history of retrovirus, and when I heard that podcast, I was amazed and I found different types of potential paintings. So I reach out to him and I asked him if I could talk to him and if he can tell me more about this. And he met with me and he was very happy. He introduced me to the rest of his team and they all shared their experiences. And then I start taking notes and I start imagining the different paintings. So when you ask me that painting of 1982, that's when the eights started to develop and we start seeing it. And in 1982, that's when we saw patients with hemophilia, uh, families. So not just the gay community. So you see that painting has the healthcare worker holding all these viruses falling. And inside the viruses there is the patients in different moments in their life. In another area of the painting, there is an umbrella and another healthcare worker that is hiding under the umbrella because he was afraid of taking care of these patients.

Paul Sax: [00:11:26] Yeah. I remember back then tremendous amount of fear and even more stigma than now. I was in medical school in the 1980s and I remember that period very well. So tell us about the last non ID subject that you chose to draw, or what are some of your favorite non ID subjects for your paintings?

Ana Velez: [00:11:47] I like to paint humans and their interactions with their world. So it's almost like a social history and infectious diseases. Almost. Um, humans. I have another mentor here at Moffitt, Dr. John Green, who taught me a lot about immunocompromised patients and infections. And he describes my paintings as Ana paints organisms and humans in distress. [laughs] So I like to paint humans and their emotions.

Paul Sax: [00:12:22] Got it. Okay. You mentioned you have generously donated paintings to the IDSA Foundation for this art auction, which raises money for the IDSA Foundation. Thank you. What inspired you to align your artwork with this cause?

Ana Velez: [00:12:37] So with my art, I seek three things. One is learning. Second is education. The third thing is give back. With the IDSA Foundation, I found the perfect opportunity to do that. Every time I paint a piece for that, I learn a new concept. Then I educate others about the importance of this concept. For example, last year there were fungal organisms. Some of them are becoming increasingly resistant to antifungals. I also painted nocardia. I love the shape. With this, I learned, I teach, and then I hope I can inspire others to find their own potential and develop it along with infectious diseases, so they can find joy at work. And then collecting funds will help others in our community to seek their dreams and find their path.

Paul Sax: [00:13:50] So related to that, what advice would you give to a person who wants to align their kind of scientific medical life with an artistic, creative one?

Ana Velez: [00:13:59] Yeah, I think the most important thing is to know yourself. Become aware of your strengths. Be persistent, set your goals and knock a door. If that one close, knock another one and keep doing it. Only then I think you will fulfill your mission for what you were created.

Paul Sax: [00:14:22] Good advice. What's next for you? What's going to be the update on Dr. Ana Velez the next time we check in?

Ana Velez: [00:14:29] Yeah, well, I am applying for the Winter Park Art Festival for 2026 in Orlando. I hope if I get selected, I can collect money to donate to the USF Bridge Clinic, which is a clinic that is run by the medical students at USF for underserved patients.

Paul Sax: [00:14:55] Excellent cause. All right, so now some quick questions. Favorite artist?

Ana Velez: [00:15:00] Van Gogh.

Paul Sax: [00:15:01] Oh, really?

Ana Velez: [00:15:02] Yes. Love it.

Paul Sax: [00:15:03] Have you been to Amsterdam to see the museum?

Ana Velez: [00:15:06] No, no, to that one. I really want to go. I love everything about his paintings, his personal history, everything.

Paul Sax: [00:15:13] Okay, well, let me give you a tip. If you start that museum on the top floor instead of the bottom floor, which is where most people start, you don't have as bad crowds, but it's wonderful.

Ana Velez: [00:15:22] Oh, great. Good to know.

Paul Sax: [00:15:25] Next question. Favorite antibiotic?

Ana Velez: [00:15:27] Doxycycline.

Paul Sax: [00:15:28] Of course!

Ana Velez: [00:15:30] I'll tell you why. If you go to travel, which I love, it gives you prophylaxis for malaria. Leptospirosis. And if you get rickettsia or licea then perfect, and then it treats acne in case you have some. [laughs]

Paul Sax: [00:15:44] Or, you know, maybe even some stray STIs if one is traveling with a lot of.

Ana Velez: [00:15:50] That's right, that's right.

Paul Sax: [00:15:52] That's one thing about you're saying doxycycline of course, in South Florida, you know, you've got that sun there, that's brutal.

Ana Velez: [00:15:58] Oh yeah. That's right, that's right. [laughs]

Paul Sax: [00:16:00] What is your favorite ID pathogen to sort of say?

Ana Velez: [00:16:06] Aspergillus.

Paul Sax: [00:16:07] Aspergillus. That's a good one that has an origin in the Catholic Church, right?

Ana Velez: [00:16:11] Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. The asperger in the mass. Yeah, asperger.

Paul Sax: [00:16:16] Uh, my favorite is Toxoplasma gondii.

Ana Velez: [00:16:20] Oh, really? Yeah.

Paul Sax: [00:16:21] I've always liked saying that. Always sounded to me like science fiction movie.

Ana Velez: [00:16:24] I agree.

Paul Sax: [00:16:26] Favorite food?

Ana Velez: [00:16:27] Mexican food. The more spicy, the better.

Paul Sax: [00:16:30] Oh my goodness.

Ana Velez: [00:16:32] Love it.

Paul Sax: [00:16:33] We would have to have separate orders if we had dinner together. And then last question is favorite skill that you have that would surprise your colleagues.

Ana Velez: [00:16:42] Soccer player and basketball player and also horse riding.

Paul Sax: [00:16:46] Okay, well, those are three good ones.

Paul Sax: [00:16:48] Dr. Ana Velez from the University of South Florida. It has been a true pleasure speaking with you about your ability to link both your artistic passions and infectious disease. Thank you for joining us.

Ana Velez: [00:17:00] Thank you, Paul, for inviting me. I really want to also thank my mentors, my family, and of course, Dr. Gallo and his team with all the information. I also would like to remind the audience, if they are interested in viewing the paintings about the retrovirus, they can start bidding. They can visit the IDSA Foundation website at www.idsafoundation.org. Thank you.

Paul Sax: [00:17:28] Thank you. Bye bye.