Welcome to Ex Vivo

Submissions for Fall/Winter 2026 are open!

Theme: Intersections

Ex Vivo exists in the space where identities meet. The clinician and the artist, the trainee and the storyteller, the healer and the humanist. This issue asks contributors to sit in that overlap on purpose: not "medicine, and also art," but the place where the two actually touch and reshape each other.We're looking for work that explores Intersections: the moments where your medical training and your creative practice collide, combine, or redefine one another.

Act I: First Encounter

The moment two identities encounter, the experience can be soft or loud. This act is about origins: the initial spark, friction, or surprise when "medical trainee" and "artist" meet.Prompts to consider: What was the first moment you noticed these two parts of you were in the same room? Was it welcome, or did it take you off guard? What did that first encounter change?

Act II: Collaboration

Once the two identities have met, what happens when they start working together? It might be a piece made because of your medical work or a way your art has changed how you show up as a clinician.Prompts to consider: Where have art and medicine actively collaborated in your life, rather than competing for your time? What has each side taught the other? What could you make only because you hold both identities at once?

Act III: New Directions

This act looks forward: what does it mean to carry both identities into whatever comes next, whether that's a new stage of training, a new creative direction, or a redefinition of what "medical trainee" and "artist" even mean to you now? This is the space for transformation, evolution, and the questions that don't have answers yet.Prompts to consider: How has this intersection changed the direction you're headed? What's a new identity, practice, or question this collision has opened up for you?