#239 2025 · IDOMED / Instituto Yduqs (agency: Artplan) · Medical educationreframe
IDOMED and Instituto Yduqs, unable to get Brazilian doctors to notice a medical curriculum built entirely around white skin, had Artplan diagnose racism itself — publishing a clinical-looking reference book of 20 fictionalized 'pathologies' modeled on real Black patients' testimony
the problem
Medical reference materials show disease presentation only on white skin
background
Brazilian medical schools, like most worldwide, built their diagnostic reference materials around one default patient: white skin. Rashes, cyanosis, jaundice, and dozens of other textbook-classic presentations were illustrated almost exclusively on light skin, a well-documented gap in dermatology and general medical training globally. In Brazil, where roughly half the population is Black or mixed-race, doctors trained this way misread or delayed diagnosis in Black patients — the exact failure IDOMED and Instituto Yduqs's diversity program was created to address.
Rather than run an awareness campaign, agency Artplan built Nigrum Corpus — Latin for 'Black body' — a hardback publication designed exactly like a clinical reference text, describing 20 fictionalized pathologies grounded in hundreds of hours of research and real patient testimony, paired with a short film following a Black patient's treatment in a Brazilian hospital. The device borrows medicine's own visual authority — typography, anatomical plates, dosage charts — to diagnose the field's blind spot in its own language.
the move
Instead of a diversity campaign, IDOMED, Instituto Yduqs, and Artplan produced a book and short film that adopt the exact visual grammar of a medical textbook — anatomical illustration, typography, dosage charts — to present racism in Brazilian healthcare as a set of diagnosable 'conditions,' built from real patient testimony and research rather than invented anecdotes.
the payoff
Per agency and independent trade-press reporting, the book has been adopted as supplementary teaching material by roughly 32 Brazilian universities, reportedly reaching over 9,000 medical students across 10-plus states, and was shared with Brazil's Ministry of Health — though being shared with the ministry is not the same as an official protocol change, and these figures come from agency and press coverage rather than an independent academic audit. The project became the first Brazilian creative work to win two Cannes Lions Grand Prix, in Industry Craft (2025) and Glass: The Lion for Change (2026).
what came after
Nigrum Corpus is cited in Brazilian advertising and medical-education circles as a model for using the exact format a profession already trusts to indict that profession's own blind spot, and has continued into hospital exhibitions in Rio de Janeiro.
filed under
references
- [1]Nigrum Corpus conquista Grand Prix no Cannes LionsArtplan, 2026artplan.com.br
- [2]IDOMED: Nigrum Corpus by Artplan, Rio de JaneiroThe Inspiration, 2025theinspiration.com