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Graphic medicine
Graphic medicine connotes the use of comics in medical education and patient care.
The phrase graphic medicine was coined by Dr. Ian Williams, founder of GraphicMedicine.org, to denote "the intersection between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare". Comics offer an engaging, powerful, and accessible method of delivering illness narratives. The academic appraisal of graphic fiction is in its infancy, but its examination by academics involved in healthcare-related studies is increasing, with work emerging in journals.
It is notable that the medical humanities movement in many medical schools advocates the framework and use of literature in exploring illness, from practitioner and patient perspectives.
A late-2010s entry to the scholarly study of graphic medicine is the PathoGraphics Research Group, an Einstein Foundation-funded project at the Free University of Berlin (2016–2019) under the direction of Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff, and with the collaboration of Susan M. Squier of the Pennsylvania State University. The group is concerned with the study of illness narratives, or "pathographies," and works of graphic medicine.
Comic books centered around public health originated in the 1940s; the earliest examples averaged around twelve pages and were aimed at preventive instruction for children. Early newsstand comics that focused on medical topics included EC's Psychoanalysis (1955) and Archie's Adventures of Young Dr. Masters (1964). Other early notable works of graphic medicine include the Strip AIDS anthologies (1987–1988); Al Davison's The Spiral Cage (1990); Milligan & McCarthy's Skin (1992); Pekar, Brabner, and Stack's Our Cancer Year (1993); and Bryan Talbot's The Tale of One Bad Rat (1994–1995).
Since the turn of the 21st century, dozens of comics and graphic novels have been published that address such health topics as depression, drug abuse, and PTSD. The genre has evolved and such graphic novels are now commonly at least 150 pages long and focus more on adult struggles with physical or mental illness.
In 2007, while writing a master's dissertation on medical narratives in comics and graphic novels, Ian Williams set up the Graphic Medicine website. During this period, he found two essays by Susan M. Squier on the topic; Squier is Penn State's Brill Professor of English and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and she teaches graphic medicine to Ph.D. students at Penn State. Scholars from around the world who were interested in comics and healthcare began to get in touch, notably Professor Michael Green, who had recently set up a graphic narratives course at Hershey Medical School at Penn State University, and MK Czerwiec, a.k.a. "Comic Nurse", who had, for many years, been recording her experiences as an HIV/AIDS hospice nurse in comics form.
Green invited his colleagues Kimberley Myers, of the Medical Humanities Program at Penn State Milton Hershey Medical School, and Susan M. Squier, whose work Williams had encountered earlier, to the discussion group, and Williams introduced Maria Vaccarella, Giskin Day, and Columba Quigley. The group decided to hold a conference, in 2010 at The University of London, which led to a series of annual international conferences with presentations that are frequently posted as podcasts after the conference.
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Graphic medicine
Graphic medicine connotes the use of comics in medical education and patient care.
The phrase graphic medicine was coined by Dr. Ian Williams, founder of GraphicMedicine.org, to denote "the intersection between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare". Comics offer an engaging, powerful, and accessible method of delivering illness narratives. The academic appraisal of graphic fiction is in its infancy, but its examination by academics involved in healthcare-related studies is increasing, with work emerging in journals.
It is notable that the medical humanities movement in many medical schools advocates the framework and use of literature in exploring illness, from practitioner and patient perspectives.
A late-2010s entry to the scholarly study of graphic medicine is the PathoGraphics Research Group, an Einstein Foundation-funded project at the Free University of Berlin (2016–2019) under the direction of Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff, and with the collaboration of Susan M. Squier of the Pennsylvania State University. The group is concerned with the study of illness narratives, or "pathographies," and works of graphic medicine.
Comic books centered around public health originated in the 1940s; the earliest examples averaged around twelve pages and were aimed at preventive instruction for children. Early newsstand comics that focused on medical topics included EC's Psychoanalysis (1955) and Archie's Adventures of Young Dr. Masters (1964). Other early notable works of graphic medicine include the Strip AIDS anthologies (1987–1988); Al Davison's The Spiral Cage (1990); Milligan & McCarthy's Skin (1992); Pekar, Brabner, and Stack's Our Cancer Year (1993); and Bryan Talbot's The Tale of One Bad Rat (1994–1995).
Since the turn of the 21st century, dozens of comics and graphic novels have been published that address such health topics as depression, drug abuse, and PTSD. The genre has evolved and such graphic novels are now commonly at least 150 pages long and focus more on adult struggles with physical or mental illness.
In 2007, while writing a master's dissertation on medical narratives in comics and graphic novels, Ian Williams set up the Graphic Medicine website. During this period, he found two essays by Susan M. Squier on the topic; Squier is Penn State's Brill Professor of English and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and she teaches graphic medicine to Ph.D. students at Penn State. Scholars from around the world who were interested in comics and healthcare began to get in touch, notably Professor Michael Green, who had recently set up a graphic narratives course at Hershey Medical School at Penn State University, and MK Czerwiec, a.k.a. "Comic Nurse", who had, for many years, been recording her experiences as an HIV/AIDS hospice nurse in comics form.
Green invited his colleagues Kimberley Myers, of the Medical Humanities Program at Penn State Milton Hershey Medical School, and Susan M. Squier, whose work Williams had encountered earlier, to the discussion group, and Williams introduced Maria Vaccarella, Giskin Day, and Columba Quigley. The group decided to hold a conference, in 2010 at The University of London, which led to a series of annual international conferences with presentations that are frequently posted as podcasts after the conference.