Image use and AI illustrations

In short

Most of the pictures on this site, the drawings and the photograph-style images alike, were made by an AI image model and not by a photographer or an illustrator.

The people, scans and places in them are not real.
Each one explains one idea in one article. It is not for diagnosing anyone or for teaching.
You may use one for personal, educational or news purposes, without payment, if you give credit and say it is AI-made.
This page explains how they are made, what they can and cannot be trusted for, and what we ask if you want to use one.

How the images are made

Each image starts as a written description: what the picture must show, who is in it, and the house drawing style and colours the site uses. That description is given to an AI image model, which produces a few versions.

Louie Leonides M. Gayao, MD looks at them and chooses one, or rejects them all and has the description rewritten.

This means:

The people in them are not real. No patient, family member or staff member was photographed for these images. Any resemblance to a real person is by chance.
The scans and body drawings are not from a real patient. They are drawn to explain an idea, not copied from anyone’s records.
The rooms and homes are not real places. A clinic or a living room in a picture is not a photograph of the practice or of anyone’s house.

If an image on this site ever is a real photograph, such as a picture of the physician himself, its caption says so. The terms on this page do not apply to it.

How body drawings are checked

A drawing of the brain, the spine, the skull or an operation can be wrong in ways a reader cannot spot. So every drawing that shows the body is checked by Louie Leonides M. Gayao, MD before it can be used.

One that is wrong is thrown out and made again. It is not published with a note underneath explaining the mistake.

Checking lowers the chance of an error. It does not make a drawing a medical reference.

What the images are for

Each image is made for one article, to help explain one thing in it. It makes sense next to the words it was drawn for.

Taken out of that article, it can mislead, because the sentence that explained it is no longer there.

Please do not use these images:

to diagnose anyone, or to compare against your own or a family member’s scan
as teaching material for doctors, nurses or students
in a consent form, or to explain an operation to a patient in place of their own doctor

They are simple drawings for a general reader. If you need to understand your own condition or scan, the articles on this site are a starting point. Your own doctor is the one who can explain what applies to you.

Using an image

You may use an image from this site for personal, educational or news purposes, without payment, if you do the following:

Before you write

Give credit as: Louie Gayao MD — louiegayao.ph. Where you can, link to the article the image came from.
Say it is an AI-made illustration. Do not present it as a photograph, a real scan or a picture of a real person.
Do not change what it shows. Do not relabel parts, crop out what explains it, or edit it so that it says something medically different.
Do not claim it as your own work, and do not sell it or offer it as stock images.

Who owns these images

We do not claim to own these images outright. In many countries, possibly including the Philippines, a picture made entirely by a machine may not be protected by copyright at all. We would rather say so plainly than suggest a right we may not have.

What we ask above is not a licence fee. It is fair credit, and honesty with your own readers about what the picture is.

If an image is wrong

If you think a drawing on this site is wrong, please tell us at the same address and say which article and which image.

A wrong image is fixed the same way a wrong sentence is: it is replaced, or it is taken down. It is not left up with a note beneath it.