M.D. and MFA: Bain Butcher ’90 Paints a Broader Picture
August 12, 2025
- Author
- Caroline Roy ’20
Artist, doctor and professor Bain Butcher ’90 makes space for every interest and passion, allowing each to inform the next.
As a student at Davidson College, Butcher found an academic home that encouraged exploration. While he knew he wanted to attend medical school after graduating, he found himself just as captivated by his music lessons, art classes with Professor Emeritus Herb Jackson ’67 and literature classes with the late Professor Emeritus Gill Holland. He also remembers his biology faculty, especially Professor Emeritus Verna Case encouraging him to continue pursuing the humanities alongside his science coursework.
“Studying art, music and literature ultimately made me a better doctor,” Butcher said. “You have to feed an academic passion with your other passions — art encourages me to think beyond myself, ask bigger questions, solve problems creatively and treat patients the way a humanitarian should.”
Throughout medical school and a family medicine residency at the University of Cincinnati, he never lost sight of his passion for art and continued to paint and draw whenever he could. A few years into his medical career, Butcher decided to take a leap and return to school — this time to earn his MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art.
“I knew I wanted to get back into academics, but not just in medicine,” he said. “I missed the creative and explorative interactions I had at Davidson, and fine art academia helped me to access that world again.”
Butcher remained in academia for the next several years, teaching art at the University of Tennessee and Maryville College. In 2006, he opened Bain Butcher Studio to exhibit his own work and offer courses and workshops on conceptual figurative art.
Yellow Number 4 by Bain Butcher
Ancient Bristlecone Pine by Bain Butcher
After returning to Cincinnati for an exhibition of his work, Butcher reflected on his unique academic perspective. As a student of medicine and art, he knew better than most how structural differences at larger universities can impede the cross-pollination of disciplines and wanted to help build bridges between faculty and students in the arts and in STEM.
In 2014, Butcher received a joint faculty appointment and became an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati, where he teaches in both the College of Medicine and the School of Art.
I try to push my students out of their comfort zones and show them it’s okay not to stay put. Our world is so dynamic that it’s imperative to learn to change, pivot and redefine yourself.
Butcher encourages his medical students to look at the entire picture, to spend time learning what a patient wants and understanding the cause and effect, the overarching narrative, of treatment. In turn, he urges his art students not to fear science.
“Science is all about reproducing your results,” he said. “Art can be like that, too. I encourage students to be analytical and methodical, to document their mistakes and their problem solving process.”
Over the past several years, Butcher has shifted his academic focus to include design thinking, a human-centered approach to visualizing data and solving problems. Leaning on his expertise as an artist and doctor, he uses design to enhance the patient experience, avoid failure scenarios in the ICU, help patients with prostate cancer choose the best treatment and more.
When he isn’t teaching or painting, you might find Butcher spending time exploring nature or playing bluegrass music on his banjo.
“As I’ve evolved in my career, I’ve learned to keep nurturing my interests rather than pinning them down,” Butcher said. “Being reflective is just as important as being productive.”
