Illustrators and developers move from entertainment to health care

Australia has witnessed a surge in illustrators and developers moving from the entertainment sector into the medical industry — a trend amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Australian medical training company Vantari VR has experienced this trend first-hand, with multiple employees joining their team.

Vantari VR is revolutionising the way doctors receive on-the-job training through its ‘flight simulator’-style technology. The company — now operating in four hospitals across Australia — was established by a team of doctors who were inspired to provide better learning outcomes and reduce medical error.

Through its unique technology, Vantari VR delivers medical training via a VR headset and laptop, allowing clinicians to perform and perfect clinical procedures. The platform covers 90% of the procedures doctors need to know as part of their fundamental training, and users learn best practice by following college-accredited steps in VR. These provide a foundation to use Vantari’s platform as both a digital logbook, and in the future, an accreditation platform.

In contrast to the four medical illustrators in Australia in 2015, in the last two years alone the Vantari VR team has been joined by Senior Technical Artist Antonio Covelo and Lead Developer/Project Manager Montgomery Guilhaus. The recent hires previously worked on Marvel and Disney films.

With film experience ranging from Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man: Homecoming to Doctor Strange and Gravity, Covelo said it was the prospect of supporting clinicians, who spend their lives saving others, that compelled him to move into the medical industry.

As a Senior Technical Artist, Covelo is responsible for the artistic needs of the company, to help produce stellar visuals for real-time application, promotional material and more. This is done through asset generation, shader authoring, lighting and FX, while maintaining close communication with developers, to ensure each creation follows best practices, to support the training for clinicians.

Senior Technical Artist Antonio Covelo.

“The past few years have seen big leaps in VR technology. We are finding that it can have a pretty meaningful impact in different industries including health care, where reducing the amount of equipment will provide efficient and accessible ways to help practitioners in their development,” he said.

“When I was working in film, I was an FX Artist/TD. I helped create the visual effects in the movies I was involved with; fire, smoke, destruction, liquid and crowd simulations, objects colliding, etc,” Covelo said.

“During this time I was lucky enough to be working next to very talented teams that inspired me to develop myself into the experienced professional I am today.

“As a creative, I enjoy new challenges, but Vantari in particular caught my interest. Coming from a family of parents involved in health care themselves, I was always interested in the idea of being able to use my skills in the medical industry at some point. It is quite gratifying knowing that the work you do is contributing to the education of practitioners who spend their lives helping others.”

Lead Developer and Project Manager Montgomery Guilhaus was also compelled to make the cross-industry move from working on Disney films, following a longstanding interest in health and human biology.

“Although this was a fantastic industry, it only fed one of my passions (software development and system creation), and did not speak to my other area of interest, which was health. From an early age I always had a passion for human biology and what makes our bodies and brains ‘tick’.

Lead Developer/Project Manager Montgomery Guilhaus.

“I was continuously exposed to the medical industry in my studio days, being exposed to companies such as Stryker Medical and 3M. I eventually landed a lead technical role at the company RelaxVR which focused on physical and mental health using VR. It wasn’t until meeting the Vantari founders Nish and Vijay in an interview that I could see both my passions being tightly coupled and the output being used to not only help people but also to save lives.”

Looking ahead, Covelo hopes more illustrators, artists and developers will make the move into the medical industry, with demand increasing year-on-year for skilled and experienced artists to aid in the creation of education with the use of innovative and boundary-pushing technology.

“VR applied to health care is a niche industry that is growing quickly,” he said.

“If anyone is ever curious about this particular field, I would totally encourage them to give it a go!”

Image caption: Vantari VR procedure image sample.