Throughout history, oral tradition and visual communication preceded the development of written language as means to convey ideas and information ¹. The heritage of anatomical representations found in cave paintings when the first visual records related to the study of anatomy were etched on the rocks by cultures that date back to the dawn of mankind is immense ^1,2. Although great advances regarding the knowledge of anatomy were achieved by the Ancient Greeks and later by the Romans, the beginnings of this science actually date back to the stone age (3,600 years before our era) when the Cromagnon illustrated wounds and dissections in pachyderms and equines ².

Since then, visual communication has continued to evolve. Suffice it to evoke developments like Leonardo's camera obscura, and Athanasius Kircher and Christiaan Huygens' magic lantern. Through their contributions, they set the basis for geometric perspective and image projection ³. Combined with the development of improved optical instruments, these advances created a tight link between the audiovisual world as we know it today and the field of health sciences. This being so, the seventh art is by no means the offspring of a single parent. On the contrary, its gestation was underpinned by the contributions of giants of the fields of physics, art and medicine, with their discoveries of the persistence of images on the retina (D 'Arcy), the study of optical illusion (Perter Mark Roget, Harvey Fitton and John Ayrton Parish), the development of photography (Nicéphoere Niepce and Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre), the telegraph (Samuel Finley Breese Morse), electric lighting, and the phonograph (Thomas Alva Edison) ³, culminating on that twenty-eighth day of December of 189S when, finally, cinema was born to the world in the Grand Café de Paris, the child of the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière and their invention of cinematography ¹.

But the coming together of these two arts (medicine and cinema) did not stop there. It was not long before surgical cinematography appeared in the scene, when Dr. Eugène Louis Doyen recorded an intervention for the first time, on the premise that these types of records "(...) enable communication and transmission of techniques to (...) serve as valuable tools to help surgeons improve their own interventions, and are the best means for teaching (...)" ³. Gone were then the days of imaginary, historical or biographical facts being the only sources of inspiration for the seventh art; a door was opened for cinema to enter the field of health education. Such was the case in Mexico, where it was used as a means to promote hygiene education ⁴, or in Colombia with the feature film La tragedia del silencio (The Tragedy of Silence) that tells the ordeal of a man presumed to have a diagnosis of leprosy ^5). advances, and also of framing hypotheses ⁶ by reimagining ideas, as it fosters critical thinking and breaks away from predetermined mindsets ⁷. As was the case in The Tragedy of Silence ⁵, cinema can be used to raise social awareness about disease, pain and about the individual and collective grief of our patients ^5,7. The seventh art in medicine can be considered a wonderful mirror to help build an environment for reflection where the audience identifies weaknesses, strengths and learning opportunities. The visual environment created by images allows to reinforce all that is positive and change what is negative. The big screen provides an opportunity to speak with the language of art, science and awareness ⁷.

With this new development, the Colombian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology seeks to arouse interest in its audience about the practice of our profession in its purest form, using modern learning tools and technology ⁸ in order to engage and move readers. This does not stray away from the tenets of William Osler, as cited by Gutiérrez-Fuentes: "(...) the practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally as your head" ^8,9.

It is the hope of the RCOG Editorial Committee that this new section will inspire the growth of our specialty both as a science and an art.

Please find below the directions authors must consider when submitting this form of publication:

1. The article must have an explanatory text that includes the following information:

2. The video format must comply with the following: