ART OF MEDICINE
"Pink Nudibranch"
Color photograph
By Gabriele Popp, M.D.
This opulent, abstract image is an underwater photograph of a marine gastropod known as a nudibranch— a mollusk that typically lacks a shell and gills (its name, which has both Latin and Greek roots, means "naked gills"). Dr. Gabriele Popp took up marine photography three years ago, after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. An avid diver, she was afraid she'd have to "say good-bye to the beautiful underwater world. . . . I wanted to take pictures home with me, as I believed I would never see [it] in person again." Happily, though, she is still diving; works as a hospitalist at DHMC; does research in hyperbaric medicine (a field she was drawn to because of its connection with diving) and brain tumors (a field she also, for obvious reasons, feels an affinity for); and had an exhibit of her work at DHMC a few months ago. Cancer, she says, has "changed my internal life . . . affected my work life" and led to "a new love—photography."
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