MIAMI, FLA.- A bronze sculpture titled Flame of Excellence by Miami artist, Santiago Medina will be officially dedicated to the Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine (FIU HWCOM). The ceremony will take place on Thursday, August 27, from 3:00 to 5:00 at the FIU Modesto Maidique Campus, 11200 SW 8th Street, AHC4 Lobby, Miami, FL. The event will be attended by Santiago Medina, with Dr. John A. Rock, HWCOM founding dean and senior vice president for health affairs officiating the event.

“Flame of Excellence” honors the faculty and staff who have taken great strides to position both the College and its graduates as examples of healthcare excellence. The broad base of Medina’s sculpture represents the FIU staff and the tip of the flame the medical students whose future points towards leadership and service to the immediate community and beyond.

The school made medical history on April 29, 2013 when the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine graduated its inaugural class. The College has now graduated three classes of students and this year, has a full complement of 480 students at 120 students per class.

“This sculpture is not only a beautiful work of art,” said Rock, “it is a symbol of the significant relationship between art and medicine; of the creative and visual skills doctors and artists share and without which neither can be successful.”

Medina’s painting titled Hope has been in the permanent collection of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine since 2012. The oil on linen painting depicts a sick man surrounded by caring but worried family members.

Also a neuroradiologist and pediatric radiologist, Medina distinctively uses advanced Computerized Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to scan his sculptures and subsequently enhance the volumetric appeal and sculptoric form.

His sculpture Infinity was recently admitted to the Tisch Library at Tufts University in Greater Boston. Other works can be found in the permanent collection of other top universities as well as exhibited permanently in public spaces in the USA and abroad. He is the only Colombian-American sculptor to have a permanent monumental sculpture at Harvard University.