Pathways

Abstract

Philip Alexander, MD, is a native Texan, retired physician, and accomplished musician and artist. After 41 years as an internal medicine physician, Dr. Phil retired from his practice in College Station in 2016. A lifelong musician and former music professor, he often performs as an oboe soloist for the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He began exploring visual art in 1980, evolving from pencil sketches-including an official White House portrait of President Ronald Reagan-to the computer-generated drawings featured in this journal. His images, which first appeared in this journal in the spring of 2012, are his own original creations. This issue of the journal also includes an artistic submission by Aryan Rezvani, MD, a graduate of the Texas A&M School of Medicine, who completed his clerkship rotations at Houston Methodist Hospital. He is now a second-year internal medicine resident at the Baylor College of Medicine. He writes, "I drew this portrait of my younger brother, who was just recently accepted to medical school, starting the path to physicianhood." If you would like to see your art published in the Methodist DeBakey Cardiovascular Journal, submit your creation online at journal.houstonmethodist.org as a "Humanities" entry.

Image 1

Cowboy’s End of the Road by Philip Alexander, MD.

Image 2

The Path by Aryan Rezvani, MD: “Turning a rough sketch into a more refined drawing often reminds me of the path of a physician—it is a joyful process of continuous growth, development, and self-improvement.”