Guest post by Gemma McKenzie “[T]hey just wanted me to be a faceless person, who would lie down and let them do what they wanted me to do… I feel like our whole system feeds into us being obedient, submissive, good girls, and other people taking what’s rightfully ours…” These are the words of an interviewee from my recent study on freebirthing in the UK. I had interviewed sixteen women about their experiences of intentionally giving birth without doctors or midwives present. These were not stories of fast labours and failed attempts to get to the hospital in time; these… Read More
Call for papers – The 2nd International Conference on Medical Humanities in the Middle East (online)
The 2nd International Conference on Medical Humanities in the Middle East (online) April 9-10, 2022 Doha, Qatar Submission Deadline: February 15, 2022 The 2nd International Conference on Medical Humanities in the Middle East invites proposals for oral presentations, posters, and creative work on the topics of design and medicine, art and medicine, narrative medicine, philosophy of medicine, medical ethics and narrative ethics, expressive arts therapies, literature and medicine, history of medicine, the anthropology, psychology, and sociology of medicine/health care and other humanistic initiatives within the context of health, medicine, and medical education in the Middle East and North Africa… Read More
Brighton keynote speaker announcement: Dr. Meg-John Barker
We are very excited to announce our first keynote speaker for the Graphic Medicine conference: Meg-John Barker is the author of a number of popular books on sex, gender, and relationships, including Queer: A Graphic History (with Julia Scheele), How To Understand Your Gender (with Alex Iantaffi), Enjoy Sex (How, When, and IF You Want To) (with Justin Hancock), Rewriting the Rules, The Psychology of Sex, and The Secrets of Enduring Love (with Jacqui Gabb). They have also written numerous books, articles, chapters, and reports for scholars and counsellors, drawing on their own research and therapeutic practice. In particular they have focused their academic-activist… Read More
Comics & National Health Care Decisions Day
April 16 was National Health Care Decisions Day, an initiative of The Conversation Project, which works in collaboration with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. The intent of the day is to ” inspire, educate, and empower the public and providers about the importance of advance care planning.” In at least two events in the U.S., comics had an important role in getting people talking about their advanced care plans. In Chicago, Life Matters Media (wonderful backstory on their beginnings here) sponsored four projects asking participants and passers-by “What does living well mean to you?” In the first, Alex Thomas, Gary Ashwal, and… Read More
New Podcast: More Doctors Making Comics!
On this week’s episode, two more doctors making comics. Plus a new theme jingle! First, Monica Lalanda, an emergency room physician from Spain. You can learn more about Monica’s work, and her book Con-Ciencia Medica on her site. She tweets @mlalanda. Here is one of her comics translated into English. My second guest is geriatrician Muna AlJawad, presenter at the 2011 Chicago Comics & Medicine conference and organizer of the 2013 Comics & Medicine conference in Brighton, England, and creator of Old Person Whisperer. Muna is currently doing research using comics as her methodology. Support for this podcast comes from… Read More
Podcast Episode 13: Meaning Making Through Drawing and Comics
In this week’s Graphic Medicine podcast, the first in a series, we’ll hear two lightning presentations from the 2015 Comics & Medicine conference in Riverside, California. Both presentations discuss how making art and comics helps create meaning and understanding, and can, in some cases, change behavior. You can listen to an image-enhanced version of the podcast here: Or you can find the episode in iTunes here. First we’ll hear from Roderick Castle, an art therapist in Rochester, New York, who works with veterans. You can learn more about Roderick from his feature in this month’s “Art Therapy Today”, published by the… Read More
The Gag Reflex: Representations of Medicine in New Yorker Cartoons
In this entertaining, reflective, and insightful talk from his workshop at the 2105 Comics & Medicine conference, doctor and New Yorker staff cartoonist Ben Schwartz tracks the history of doctors, medicine, and health as reflected in the single-panel gag cartoons of the New Yorker Magazine. He also shares reflections from a few fellow New Yorker cartoonists on medicine in comics, and tips for making a gag comic of your own. Keep an eye on your screen, there are over 200 comics in this presentation! If your browser supports Quicktime, you can watch it in the first window below. If it… Read More
Annals of Internal Medicine: Betty P.
Prof. Michael Green of Penn State Medical School, who edits the Graphic Medicine section of the Annals of Internal Medicine, has contributed his second comic strip to the series. Illustrated by Ray Rieck, Betty P. examines the ethics of cardiopulmonary resuscitation coding in patients with a terminal prognosis. Michael initiated the innovative comics course at the Hershey Medical School, which has proven very popular among students. He is a member of the steering committee of the annual Comics and Medicine conferences. Click on the image or read the strip here.
Call for Papers of Interest
CALL FOR PROPOSALS Health Humanities: The Next Decade (Pedagogies, Practices, Politics) 30 April – 2 May 2015 The Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus will host the 4th International Health Humanities Conference. This cross-disciplinary and inter-professional conference will bring together scholars, educators, clinicians, health advocates, students, patients and caregivers in an effort to identify the core issues and guiding values as well as define the expanding scope of the Health Humanities for the next decade. The following question will guide our efforts throughout this conference: What are the implications, responsibilities, and expectations of… Read More