There are certain places where you expect a particular look. A nightclub has a look.
A bank has a look. A law firm has a look. And a cancer institute? Well… you probably have an image in your head.
That is why the latest pictures coming out of Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) are causing a little confusion. Some of UCI’s familiar faces have suddenly appeared in a very different visual world. The white coats seem to have taken a short break. The people haven’t changed. But something about how they’re showing up has.
It might sound like a small thing. It isn’t. Institutions develop visual personalities just like people do.
For years, UCI’s public image has understandably been dominated by the seriousness of cancer: diagnosis, treatment, statistics, equipment, doctors, and patients. But UCI today is considerably more than that. Its own description of the institute encompasses research, training, consultation, and clinical care, alongside services such as radiotherapy, surgery, pharmacy, and specialised oncology.
And its ambitions are increasingly regional. UCI’s radiation oncology fellowship programme, for example, is explicitly designed to build specialist capacity in Uganda and the East African region, with the stated vision of becoming an East African regional training centre of excellence.
So maybe the new look isn’t completely random. Maybe the institution is finally beginning to look like the institution it has been becoming.
