As the University of Cincinnati Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library welcomes the 2024-25 College of Medicine students and faculty back to the academic calendar, they are greeted by the new installation of MEDSTEPS. The sculpture is the work of renowned artist and scientist Wolfgang Ritschel (1933-2010). It is located on the G-level of the Health Sciences Library.

Dr. Ritschel described MEDSTEPS as:

Stairs may have different purposes and meanings. Essentially, they are a means to reaching different levels, both literally and figuratively speaking. This sculpture uses stairs or, rather steps on a ladder, as a metaphorical form of expression in paying tribute to the development and advancement of medicine from its beginnings at the dawn of time – including Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, and Native American medicine with their symbols as shown in the stained-glass panels – to computerized medicine, along with corresponding “step-by-step” technological progress in diagnosis and therapy. Medicine and the arts were always intertwined, as is suggested by the common expression “medical arts.”  In fact, in 15^th-century Europe, physicians, pharmacists and artists all belonged to the same guild, a development which presumably originated with the use of mortar and pestle as a grinding tool for both pharmaceutical substances and pigments.  I like to think of this as part of my personal and artistic statement in sculptures with a medical theme.

The sculpture is composed of stainless steel, gold leaf, stained glass, lead, polymer, paint, wood and measures 91” x 51” x 22”.