Special Topics in Biomedical Visualization: Graphic Medicine

Spring 2024, Mondays, 4:30-6:30pm CST

1919 W. Taylor Street, Room 222

The course will be taught by nurse-cartoonist MK Czerwiec (Sir-wick)

MK is a co-founder of the field of graphic medicine
and scholar of the health humanities.

This course is designed specifically for medical illustration students to teach the skills and best practices of the quickly growing field of graphic medicine. Formally organized circa 2010, this sub-discipline of the health humanities is defined as the intersection between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare. Becoming well-versed in the goals and methods of graphic medicine will equip medical illustrators with dynamic, useful, and powerful tools to enhance their professional and personal artistic practice.This course will be divided into four modules, each corresponding to an a concrete, research-based application of graphic medicine.

Each module will be research and practice based. We will balance readings and discussion with creative drawing and comics-making assignments. We will also welcome practicing professionals of graphic medicine into our classroom and benefit from their expertise. The readings will primarily be drawn from a wide variety of graphic memoirs and comics, and will be supplemented with materials from multimedia sources including biomedical literature, online video, podcasts, and the visual arts.

No prior knowledge or experience of graphic novels, comics, medicine, and/or illness are required. This online syllabus will be updated regularly during the course and serve as our dynamic workspace. Check back frequently for updates and assignments. Web content is subject to change.

In the event of a need to pivot to instruction via Zoom, please use this link.

Full syllabus for this course is available here.

Readings: The readings for this course will be provided, either as an online link or in class. No books are required for purchase. One text that is suggested is Maker Comics: Draw A Comic by J.P. Coovert. It is available via Amazon as a physical copy and e-book. Though aimed at young adults, it contains valuable, concrete guidance regarding tools and methods for comic and zine creation.

Other books that will be mentioned or excerpted in the course can be found here.

Supplies: This course will utilize basic drawing skills and focus primarily on analog techniques. Minimal supplies are required, such as pencils, a dark black pen, paper, ruler, and an eraser. Coloring supplies (crayons, colored pencils, markers) are welcome but not absolutely necessary. Students will need a Zoom-enabled computer and internet access.

Week 1: January 8

PLEASE NOTE: This class will meet via Zoom. See link above.

Introductions:

To one another – via our avatars
To this course
To comics and our class ground rules
To the health humanities
To graphic medicine – if able, read the introduction to the Graphic Medicine Manifesto

Class followup:

Two projects highlighted in the chat:

The Gender Wars of Household Chores: A Feminist Comic

and

Smallpox Zero: An Illustrated History of Smallpox and its Eradication

Three languages of observation: (John Muir Laws)

https://www.instagram.com/p/C6j33JiyRc2/

images – Draw a picture of what you see. What do I notice? We draw pictures and diagrams to slow us, make us truly LOOK and see. The picture is not the thing, the observations are the thing.
words – what does what I’ve observed make me wonder? make me curious about? how doe what I notice relate to my life? what does my observation remind me of? “Curiosity sucks you into a deeper experience of whatever phenomena you are looking at.”
numbers – quantify – count, weigh, measure, time

(click on image above for class slides)

Week 2 : January 15

MLK Day, no class – peruse the graphic medicine website and come to next week’s class prepared to discuss.

Week 3: January 22

Education 1 – Comics basics, introduction to health education comics

Lecture, discussion, and in-class exercises

Class Prep:

For this module, you will be making a health education comic, due February 5. Contemplate the health education topic you would like to cover in this comic.
For class, read Graphic Public Health, Chapter 5, “Making Comics For Public Health and Information”
On humor and comics in health communication – LATE ADD

Class followup:

(click on the image above for class slides)

Our warmup exercise was based on the work of Wendy MacNaughton, Dorothea Lange, and seeing one another:

Week 4: January 29

Education 2 – Best practices of educational comics with guest speaker Gary Ashwal.

- Review Iggy and the Inhalers (print copies distributed in class)
- And listen to this interview
- And read Are Comic Books Appropriate Health Education Formats to Offer Adult Patients? Ashwal & Thomas, 2018
- Health Education Comics Framework (Jan 29 2024)
- A comic that explains palliative care: how patients experience comic-based educational materials (late add)

Class followup: Gary’s handout outline of his lecture.

slide by Gary Ashwal, art by Alex Thomas

Health Education Comics Framework (Jan 29 2024) and his slide on creating an educational comic.

Week 5: February 5

Education 3 – Your education comic is due. We’ll be sharing & discussing them, and will follow with a discussion of testing the efficacy of those comics to achieve their educational goals with research.

Class followup:

GREAT WORK ON YOUR EDUCATION COMICS!!
Follow up on our conversation, and in re the assignment for our next section, Research, I found this article that captures some of our beginning-of-class discussion, “Why Academic Conference Posters Suck.” They include some tips for improvement there.
- And here’s what the Journal of the American Medical Association says makes good visual abstracts. (I actually like this advice as a starting point.)
- And we discussed visual note taking, and how some examples are better than others. Here’s an interesting guide to some of the better ones we found, by Ink Factory. All of this should help with your cartoon/comic abstracts due Feb. 26
- Here’s a study from the Journal of Internet Medical Research that discusses the impact of visual abstracts on research dissemination.
Links to some of the graphic memoirs/comics I mentioned in our discussions of your work.

- Lighter than My Shadow by Katie Green (the review has some nice pages from the book)
- Guts by Raina Telgemeier (this review focuses on therapy but shows some of the topic parallels I mentioned)
- Black Mothers Face Far Worse Health Outcomes How Do We Fix It? by Whit Taylor
- Medicine’s Women Problem by Aubrey Hirsch
- Medical Gaslighting by Janice Goldberg

Week 6: February 12

Research 1 – Introduction to research comics

Lecture, discussion, and in-class exercises

For this class:

Read and be prepared to discuss this book chapter from Research Methods in Health Humanities, ed. by Craig Klugman and Erin Gentry Lamb, Oxford University Press, 2019, read Chapter 5: Comics by Muna Al-Jawad and MK Czerwiec
Also (late add) check out this article: Comics-based research: The Affordances of Comics for Research Across Disciplines.
Comics Are Research: Graphic Narratives as a New Way of Seeing Clinical Practice, Muna Al-Jawad, J Med Hum, 2015
In prep for your project for this module, be sure to check out the articles posted in the class follow-up, #2 above.

Class followup – here are my slides and the Laurie Santos video we watched in class and your homework comic is based upon.

And here are the books I brought to class as examples.

Here I Am, I Am Me by Cara Bean

Graph Out Loud

The Algebra of Happiness by Scott Galloway – and here is a video where he explains a few of the examples from the book.

The “Really Strange” series

The Nib Bureau of Statistics

Neurocomic by Matteo Farinella

Dirty Biology by Leo Grasset (Author) Grasset Colas (Artist) Kendra Boileau(Translator)

George: The Lien Foundation Annual Reports/website

The work of Kay Sohini, especially her data visualization gallery.

Choose one study below (or propose your own choice) and create a cartoon/comic abstract. This will be due February 26th:

Graphic medicine: use of comics in medical education and patient care, Green & Myers, 2010 (foundational article)
Validation of an Educational Comic Book to Guide Conducts in Situations of Dental Trauma, Medieros, et al 2023
Comics in Science and Health Communication: Insights From Mutual Collaboration and Framing a Research Practice, Tavares et al, 2023
Graphic Medicine: Comics as a Patient Education Resource, Wombles, 2021
Comics as a Medium for Providing Information on Adult Immunization, Muzumdar, 2017
Mrs. B Changes Doctors: Using a Comic and Patient Transition Packet to Engineer Patient-Oriented Clinic Handoffs, Pincavage et al, 2015
U of C study 2 – Impact of an Educational Comic to Enhance Patient-Physician Health Record Engagement
Using Comic-Based Concussion Discharge Instructions to Address Caregiver Health Literacy in the Emergency Department, Pham, et al, January 2023
Use of a Graphic Memoir to Enhance Clinician’s Understanding and Empathy for Patients with Parkinson’s Disease Myers et al 2020
Visual Language Theory and the Scientific Study of Comics, Cohen, 2018
Disease Information Through Comics: A Graphic Option for Health Education, Rakower, 2022

Week 7: February 19

PLEASE NOTE: This class will meet via Zoom. See link above.

Research 2 – Best practices of research comics with guest Dr. Michael Green

Class Prep:

Finish your in-class comic on the science of happiness (pairing a annoying feature of the mind with a rewirement)
Read Chapter 9 from the book pictured below: “Research comics as translation: knowledge transfer and new audiences“
(LATE ADD: The Potential of Comics in Science Communication, Matteo Farinella, 2018)

Week 8: February 26

Research 3 – Your research comic abstract due, sharing & discussion

Two resources:

Chapter 10 from the book pictured above, Ch. 10 Alternative Shapes of Knowledge
and Art Based Research from Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research : Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues, edited by J. Gary Knowles, and Ardra L. Cole, 2007.

MIDTERM MEETING TIME

Meetings are 15-30 minutes. We will discuss your first two projects and your plans for your final project as well as any feedback you have on the class.

Meeting times are first come, first serve. I will delete meeting times as they are claimed. We can meet via Zoom or in person.

Week 9: March 4

Advocacy & Disability 1 – Introduction to health advocacy comics – Lecture, discussion, and in-class exercises

Please read the following to prep for class:

What is Universal Digital Design?
Where All Bodies Are Exquisite, Riva Lehrer
This comic.

Optional but may be of interest:

Oh look! I’ve edited this formula based on our conversation (Thanks!)

The requirements for your Advocacy Comic assignment are the same.

Week 10: March 11

Advocacy 2 – Best practices of health advocacy comics with guest speaker Whit Taylor, MPH

Read Black Mothers Face Far Worse Health Outcomes How Do We Fix It? by Whit Taylor
Read African-Americans are More Likely to Distrust the Medical System, Blame the Tuskegee Experiment by Whit Taylor
The rest of Whit’s comics for The Nib (after class add)

Week 11: March 18 – No class, Spring Break

Want something to read? Here is a rich new resource, an index of Substacks about comics!

Substacks about comics, part 1

Substacks about comics, part 2

Week 12: March 25 – Best practices of reflection/memoir comics with guest Dr. Elizabeth Trembley

To prepare for class, please:

Read this excerpt from Look Again
Read “How to Make a Graphic Memoir”
Watch video interview with Daniel Gregory
How Drawing and Mindfulness Support Mental Health by Bill Dan
How to Spot the Smartest Person in the Room
On Curiosity with Ted Lasso
On Silence for Reflection with Mister Rogers
Refresh your recall of this piece from last class: Ethical Issues and Issues of Ethics, from Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research : Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues, edited by J. Gary Knowles, and Ardra L. Cole, 2007.

Week 13: April 1

Reflection 2 – ADVOCACY COMIC SHARING, and discussing related process issues behind my graphic memoir project, Taking Turns: Stories From HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371.

To prepare for class, please:

Be prepared to share your finished Advocacy comic.
Read Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 (copies will be distributed in class or mailed)
As follow up to the above, read the new edition intro to Taking Turns (and partial comic thereof.)
Once again refresh your recall of this piece: Ethical Issues and Issues of Ethics, from Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research : Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues, edited by J. Gary Knowles, and Ardra L. Cole, 2007.