while in china, parker met lam qua, a western-trained chinese painter. parker commissioned lam qua to paint patients at the canton hospital with large tumors or other major deformities. some of the paintings are part of a collection of lam qua's work held by the peter parker collection at the harvey cushing/john hay whitney medical library at yale university. parker left these portraits to the pathology department of the yale medical school, which later gave them to the library.