Free Medical Images Collection

These days I am illustrating Wikipedia articles with images related to medicine. Sometimes, the existing image(s) on an article are too old, so I would want to add a newer, higher resolution image by replacing the old one. Some articles do not have images at all. A major problem for me was in finding the right image for the given article. Wikipedia accepts images/media that are CC-BY-SA or lower, so I had to go through the existing image repositories to find out those with the right license for Wikipedia. I decided to tabulate some of the image repositories that have medical content, along with the license they are shared under. I hope this would be useful not only for me, but for everyone else who are looking for free images related to medicine. Please note that this is not a comprehensive list, I have only included the repositories that I know of.

Source	License	Notes
Creative Commons search	CC-varied	Datasets from these collections are found on CC-search.
All Free Photos	–	Free photos of all kinds
Burst Images	Public Domain	Free photos of all kinds
Medpix	All Rights Reserved	Medpix is a repository of medical cases run by the NIH, USA. The images are free for personal use, but need permission from the authors for any use other than personal. Contact the authors directly for permission.
Radiopedia	CC-BY-NC-SA	Collection of radiology images. Copyright rests with the author of the image.
Flickr Commons	CC varied	Media from Flickr Commons also shows up on CC search.
British Library	–	Images from British Library, UK
ASH Image bank	Fair Use	A collection of hematology images. Login needed, free account creation.
Centre for Disease Control and Prevention	Mostly Public Domain	Images related to healthcare, diseases, health promotion etc.
Brain Biodiversity Bank	All rights reserved	Altas of human brain. Radiology images and 3D movies available. Free re-use permitted, contact the authors for re-use permissions.
US National Library of Medicine	Fair Use	Contain images related to. medicine. Obtain permission from the website for re-use. Permission shall be granted on a case-by-case basis. Some images are CC.
National Eye Institute	CC varied	Some images are CC-BY. Results can be found from CC-search.
Duke University Digital Repository	CC-BY-NC-SA	Contains advertisements and handouts of medical products
Visible Body	All Rights Reserved	Some content is available without subscription. Contains 3D anatomy resources.
3D Embryo Atlas	CC-BY-NC-ND	Media related to embryology
Bio Atlas	Use with attribution	Contains high resolution histology and histopathology images of humans and animals
CAOM	–	Histopathology slides, pages are slow to load. From Poznan
Brain-Maps	–	Histo- and gross images of brains of humans and animals
Cancer Digital Archive	–	Image repository of oncopathology
Aurora M-scope	Most images in Public Domain	Contains histopathology slides. Needs a special software for opening the files in high resolution.
Heidelberg University	All Rights Reserved	Contains educational images related to pathology
Pathobin	–	A platform for uploading pathology slides. Copyright lies with the uploader.
National Institute of Health, USA	Public Domain	Images are on Flickr, hence available using CC-search.
Europeana	CC varied	Contains media related to history of medicine and natural history
Fossil Forum	–	Collection of fossils. Individual uploaders hold the copyright. Fair use permitted.
Medillsb	Varied	Website of the association of medical illustrators. Contact individual authors for re-use.
Medical Graphics DE	CC-BY-ND	Illustrations related to medicine.
LifeScienceDB	CC-BY-SA	Create your own photos and videos of human anatomy
Neuroanatomy	CC-BY-SA-NC	Neuroanatomy media. From University of British Columbia. Contains 360 degree views of the brain, MRIs etc.
Dollar Street	CC-BY-SA	Collection of everyday objects, people, families showing socioeconomic status of people around the world.
Cell Image Library	CC-varied	Mostly public domain images of cells.
Heal Collection	CC varied	Images for medical education.
Stanford Medical Library	CC varied	Images related to medicine from Stanford.
National Cancer Institute	CC-varied	Contains media related to cancer.
Histology Atlas	CC-BY-NC-ND	Histology images
Audilab	CC-BY-NC-SA	3D images related to anatomy
Sketchfab	CC-BY-NC-SA	Illustrations related to human body
Open Access Biomedical Search Engine	–	Can perform advanced search by License type
Science Images of Australia	CC-BY	Natural history, medicine images
Library of Congress collection	Varied	History of medicine
The noun project	CC-BY	Contains icons for general use and those related to medicine
Somersault Images	CC-BY-SA-NC	Illustrations related to medicine
Smart Servier	CC-BY	Illustrations related to medicine
Ghorayeb Images	CC-BY-NC=ND	Collection of images from ENT
Ecure Me	All Rights Reserved	Illustrations and photos of diseases
University of California	All Rights Reserved	Images of clinical signs and symptoms
University of Iowa	All Rights Reserved	Images of dermatological conditions
Internet Pathology Laboratory	All Rights Reserved	Images related to pathology
Atlas of endoscopy	All Rights Reserved	Images related to endoscopy/gastroenerology

Ladies, let’s contribute to Wikipedia!

This post first appeared on Forbes website and Women 2.0 website in August 2012.

There is nothing else that changed my life like Wikipedia. It is not just that I “edit” Wikipedia, but I also “celebrate” it.
Editing Wikipedia is a rewarding experience as it helps me gain a new perspective of things. It is also exciting to be able to share the bit of knowledge I know with the millions of knowledge seekers from around the world.

Women and Wikipedia

Like most other tech-related organizations, Wikipedia too cannot boast of high female participation. A recent research points out that only 9% of the editors of English Wikipedia are women.
Wikipedia is sensitive to the gender gap issue and is on its way to close it. The Wikimedia Foundation has set a goal to raise the share of female contributors to 25% by 2015. A WikiWomanCamp was organized this year at Buenos Aires, Argentina for the wiki-women to interact with each other, share their experiences and discuss about gender gap and related issues.

Why so few women edit?

At the WikiWomenCamp, it was pointed out by participants that women do not contribute to Wikipedia because of various socio-cultural factors. Women are traditionally assigned the responsibility of housekeeping and childrearing, which leaves them with very little time to spend for volunteering activities. Women often suffer from lack of confidence and insecurity, which makes them think that those around them are better performers than them.
Women are not clear on why and how to get involved. The specific jargon used in Wikiprojects makes some new users uncomfortable and they eventually quit editing.
There should be a deep cultural change in the tech field to value women’s contributions and make their contributions more visible to the outer world.Sue Gardener, the Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation says, “Deliberately focus efforts on recruiting women. Don’t assume that general outreach efforts will motivate women. Encourage women to recruit other women”.

We edit! CC-BY-SA.

 

Why should women edit Wikipedia?

Diversity of opinion is the essence of any encyclopedia. It is important that all articles are written from a neutral point of view, and having equal representation of women editors would increase neutrality and reduce bias. Women scientists, thinkers and those women who excel in traditionally male dominated fields are given lesser biographical coverage on Wikipedia than men involved in these fields.Having more women volunteers will help reduce this skewed coverage and increase the quality of the content of Wikipedia articles.

Getting involved: You too can write on Wikipedia

Anybody can edit Wikipedia. You don’t have to be an expert in the subject to be able to edit any article. You do not have to learn any computer language to be able to edit Wikipedia. If you are interested in any specific subjects, you could join the Wikiproject for the topic to collaborate with editors of similar interests and keep updated about the latest news in the subject. There are mailing lists for many aspects of wiki-editing, including the Gendergap mailing list for increasing the participation of women in Wikiprojects. Most regional languages have Wikipedias of their own, so if you are not comfortable with contributing in English, you could contribute to the language Wikipedia of your choice.
If you have photographs of educational value, you could upload them to Wikimedia Commons to permit their usage in Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia has sister projects like Wikinews, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote etc. which also work like Wikipedia.

For more details on how to edit Wikipedia, see this Wikipedia page or contact me!