Her mother worked on personal art projects such as large mosaic installations in the town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and tended her garden, making a bee house to support a pollinator-friendly yard. “She calls herself a ‘domestic artist,’” said Dr. Silver.
Explore This Issue
July 2022Although art was important, Dr. Silver knew she didn’t want to pursue art professionally. “I found art more personal, less of a thing to market and sell to others,” she said. She focuses mostly on painting with acrylics, drawing with ink and graphite, creating digital art on her iPad using the apps Procreate and Photoshop, and a bit of photography.
“Resilience,” an artistic work by Cheyanne Silver, MD, represents the struggle of medical students
entering the field.
Finding British painter Jenny Saville while studying art in London during a semester abroad at the Camberville College of Arts helped Dr. Silver define her artistic approach. “I fell in love with her work,” said Dr. Silver. Saville, known for her large-scale observations of the obese female nude body, has observed plastic surgeons at work to more accurately convey the scars surgery leaves behind. “All the paintings were of the pre-op or intra-op portions. I love her ability to paint the vulnerability inherent in any surgery,” said Dr. Silver. “She’s fascinated, as I am, in the way you can change a human being’s form through surgery.”
Dr. Silver sees medicine, particularly surgery, as its own art form. “I think it’s a very artistic field. It became an obvious career choice for me,” she said. “Every day you wake up and operate. You know the procedures and steps, but each person is unique—you can’t predict what you’ll find. The combination of the fine hand/eye coordination, along with the sense that you’re helping others, has never bored me.”
Another piece Dr. Silver created—“Warm Blood,” acrylic and ink on wood panel—helped her to process her experience with the first patient she took care of while she was in medical school, who later died. “It was a really good way to process some of those heavy feelings surrounding my first patient death,” she said. “It was about honoring this person’s memory and the impact it had on my career. It was deeply personal, and I hope that people can look at it and enjoy the art.”
Otolaryngology and Art
After studying linguistics at the University of Iowa in Iowa City as an undergraduate, Dr. Silver attended medical school at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Ill. She’s currently in residency at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science in Rochester. She chose to specialize in otolaryngology because of its variety.