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Where can I get medical images, photos, videos or animations?

We list some resources for medical stock shots, images, photographs, slides, videos, animations, and film footage that may be helpful.

US Government Medical Stock Image & Footage

Most US government images and graphics are in the public domain. Read the disclaimers on each site before use.

  • NLM Digital Collections contains Images from the History of Medicine (IHM). There are more than 70,000 historical images, from the Middle Ages to the present. You can also search for the images through LocatorPlus and the NLM Catalog.
  • The NLM Visible Human Project is a digital image library of complete, normal adult male and female anatomies.
  • NCI Visuals Online is from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute.
  • Open-I is the Open Access Biomedical Images search engine. Access images in the National Library of Medicine's PMC (formerly PubMed Central) – an open archive of free full-text biomedical and life sciences journal literature.
  • MedPix is a free open-access online database of medical images, teaching cases, and clinical topics, integrating images and textual metadata including over 12,000 patient case scenarios, 9,000 topics, and nearly 59,000 images.
  • The National Institutes of Health's National Eye Institute provides a Photos, Images, and Videos Catalog.
  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Public Health Image Library (PHIL) is a gateway to images at the CDC.
  • The US Census Library resources include audio, video, and infographics.

*Other Resources 

CELLS alive!Creative Commons
depositphotosThe Doe Report
dreamstimeFOOTAGE.net
FOTOSEARCHgettyimages
iStockMedical Images
medmovie.comMotifolio, Inc.
Nucleus Medical MediaScience Source
Stock Footage Index OnlineVidevo

You can find more information in the book, AV Marketplace (New York: Information Today, Inc.); a library in your area may own this.

*NLM is not responsible for the availability or content of non-NLM sites, nor does NLM endorse, warrant, or guarantee the products, services, or information described or offered at other sites.