Spotlight: Diagnosketch | Graphic Medicine

Diagnosketch is a colorful, visual book that helps explain medical diagnoses to a non-medical audience. It simplifies human anatomy and pathophysiology into memorable, patient-friendly, understandable images. It conveys complicated medical concepts quickly and effectively. Diagnosketch includes 100+ images of common diagnoses seen in an acute care setting. Kidney stones. Diverticulitis. Gallstones. Ovarian cysts. Medical professionals use Diagnosketch to better communicate with patients in various settings, like Emergency Rooms, Urgent Care Clinics and Primary Care Offices.

Over the past 20 years of clinical practice in the ER, I have been creating images to explain medical diagnoses for my patients. As both a physician and an artist, I went from creating realistic, traditional illustrations to simple, graphic colorful sketches. The graphic sketches were much more helpful to explain big, scary medical words like cholecystectomy and intracranial hemorrhage. Once I began using these images, I noticed something. Patients began to ask questions. Intelligent questions. Logical questions. Patients began to understand what was going on inside their own bodies. They understood how medical disease worked.

I believe using simplified, graphic images improves health literacy. I propose that we use more of these types of images to communicate complicated medical concepts to a non-medical audience.