Curative
Design

First Suite · Acute Care

• Plate 01

  Categories of Shock

  Four failures of circulation, resolved into one chart: cardiac output, preload, venous oxygen saturation and systemic vascular resistance moving against each other across distributive, hypovolemic, cardiogenic and obstructive states.

• Plate 02

  Chest Pain: The Can’t-Miss Diagnoses

  Six diagnoses you cannot afford to walk past — tension pneumothorax, pulmonary embolism, esophageal rupture, myocardial infarction, tamponade, aortic dissection — each by its clinical tell and the test that settles it.

• Plate 03

  Classifications of Anemia

  The full schema by cell size and marrow response, from iron deficiency through the hemolytic anemias, ordered so the commonest causes read first.

• Plate 04

  Causes of Gastrointestinal Bleeding

  The upper and lower tracts mapped together. The most restrained plate in the series, and deliberately so.

• Plate 05

  The Primary Survey

  Airway, breathing, circulation, disability, exposure — the trauma bay’s first ninety seconds, with the Glasgow Coma Scale rendered in full.

Second Suite · Structure and Physiology

• Plate 06

  Hyponatremia

  Built on the crystalline lattice of sodium chloride itself, the algorithm rising out of the structure in cuboid blocks. Organized by volume status — hypervolemic, hypovolemic, euvolemic — so the physiology and the treatment share one frame.

• Plate 07

  Anatomical Triangles

  Hesselbach’s triangle, the danger triangle of the face, and the triangles of the neck — nested figures inside a nested composition, in the geometric register the anatomy suggests.

• Plate 08

  The Finger Pulley System

  The annular and cruciate pulleys, explored by a skeleton draughtsman in a series of sketches. The most affectionate piece in the show, and the one most likely to make a hand surgeon laugh.

• Plate 09In Progress

  The Cranial Nerves

  Twelve nerves, and the hardest brief in the series — a subject the first generation of Curative Design had already answered well. In development.

• Artist · Second Generation

  Alex Dai, MD MPH

  A surgeon who draws. His portfolio — a brachial plexus reimagined as a subway map, a study of the nephron — is what convinced Nerdcore Medical that Curative Design could have a second life. He co-authors on art in surgery, and every plate in this series carries his signature.

• Artist · First Generation

  Eleanor Mohren

  Designer of the original twenty plates, working as Eleanor Lutz. A biologist by training and the creator of Tabletop Whale, she went on to the graphics desk of The New York Times. Her Curative Design work set the standard everything since has been measured against.

• Founders

  Arun & Zeeba Mathews

  Two physicians who thought medical education deserved better design, and commissioned it. Arun is Regional Chief Medical Officer for MultiCare’s Auburn and Covington Medical Centers; both review every plate for clinical accuracy before it is printed.

• Production

  Nerdcore Medical

  The medical education studio behind Curative Design, the Healing Blade games, and Occam’s Razor. Sasha Fairchok writes and produces the poster series; Brandon Patton runs operations.