Book Review by Kevin Wolf Silver Wire by Kriota Willberg provides a fascinating introduction to, history about, and descriptions of ligatures and sutures, and more. According to medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com ligature is “a thread or wire used in surgery to tie off blood vessels to prevent bleeding, or treat abnormalities in other parts of the body by constricting the tissues” and suture is stitch(es) to secure “edges of a surgical or traumatic wound.” The material used can be dissolvable (usually for internal stitching) or needing to be manually removed (external stitching usually). From Willberg’s research, “For millennia surgeons have been closing… Read More
Leah Eisenberg and Visualizing Biobanking
This week on the graphic medicine podcast, Leah Eisenberg talks about her work as a lawyer and bioethicist using comics to help make biobanking more comprehensible, and consent to bio banking more meaningful. In the “What Are You Reading?!” segment, Leah updates us on her comics & medicine work and recommends a few books she’s enjoyed recently. Leah recommends the March series about John Lewis, Neurocomic, and the work of Tyler Page, and S/Z, about communicating ideas with storytelling. Support for this podcast comes from Penn State College of Medicine, Department of Humanities, the nation’s oldest Humanities Department… 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.
Graphic Medicine at ASBH
The theme of this year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities was “Tradition, Innovation, and Moral Courage.” The meeting was held October 24-27 in Atlanta, GA. (Photos by Michael Green.) From the abstract for the panel “Graphic Medicine @ Work: Outcomes When the Intervention is a Comic” : The last several years have seen a rise in graphic novels depicting medical experiences and graphic stories used for patient education purposes. A handful of preliminary studies suggest that the use of illustrations on health instructions increase patient engagement with and recollection of the information presented. Three studies further… Read More
Nicola Streeten’s Brighton Keynote: “Damned if you Do, Doomed if you Don’t”
This week’s podcast presents Nicola Streeten’s keynote address from the 2013 Brighton Comics & Medicine conference, “Damned if you do, doomed if you don’t: The 21st century ethics of abortion in graphic novel form.” Nicola is introduced by Sue Eckstein. Use the Quicktime player below to view images along with the audio of Nicola’s keynote presentation. If you don’t have Quicktime, you can listen to an audio-only version of the keynote presentation below.
Graphic Medicine Podcast – Panel 1C: Resistance – A Voice for the Voiceless
Our third panel from Brighton, addressing issues of depression and comics, ethical issues facing medical students, and perceptions of Downs Syndrome. Use the Quicktime players below to view images along with the audio of each presentation. If you don’t have Quicktime, you can listen to an audio-only version of the entire panel. See link at the end of this post. First up is Marie-Jeanne (MJ) Jacob, presenting her talk, Dark Days: The Ethical Implications Surrounding Depression, and Comics Creation as Retaliation She writes, Two years ago I began to brainstorm a comic discussing depression, as someone who both suffers from… Read More