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Safety robot. As a child, Fairman loved to draw imaginary creations in her coloring books. © 1983 Jennifer E. Fairman

As a child

While growing up in Houston, Fairman was fascinated by her teachers. She thought it was amazing “how much teachers knew and how they shared knowledge and contributed to other people’s budding futures,” she says. She hoped to grow up to be a teacher.
 
Fairman excelled at math and science and attended the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions. Attending a magnet school like DeBakey opened up the alternate professional career of medicine. But “in the background, there was always art. Art was my hobby, my stress relief,” she says.
 
When Fairman was 15, her parents relocated the family to Newport News, Va. “I was born and raised in Houston. It was all I knew at that time, so (the move) was the most devastating thing to ever happen to a kid like me!” she says with a laugh. She attended a regular high school in Newport News, but the guidance counselor knew of her passion for science and math.
 
One day, the nurses of Riverside Hospital came to speak to students about careers in nursing. “I was invited to go to the library to listen to them. I wasn’t really interested in nursing, but I went anyway because I could get out of German class,” says Fairman. At the library, Fairman sat at the back and began flipping through a booklet the nurses had handed out on health science careers. In flipping through the pages, a picture caught her eye.
 
“There was this picture of a woman sitting at a drawing table with a skull, a huge picture of an eye and some anatomical drawings around her, and all these different references. She was drawing. I thought, ‘There’s an artist! What is this?’ I wasn’t even reading what it was. I was just looking at the picture. I was so mesmerized,” recalls Fairman. “Then I looked at the title of the career, and it said ‘Medical Illustrator.’”