Review by Sheila Ngoc Pham The Baby-Sitters Club series was a window into many different worlds while I was growing up. After all, it was through these books that the words “brittle diabetic” entered into my vocabulary and how I first learnt about diabetes. Stacey McGill’s life-altering condition was ever present and sensitively handled in the books; her best friend Claudia Kishi always ensured there were pretzels for her to snack on while the rest ate sugary American junk food at their club meetings. The Truth About Stacey is one of a number of books from the original series that’s… Read More
Mr. S Changes Doctors: Clinic Handoff Comic in Annals of Internal Medicine
The short comic “Mr. S Changes Doctors” was created by Comic Nurse MK Czerwiec, in collaboration with University of Chicago physicians Amber Pincavage and Vineet Arora. Click through for full comic here. In his post highlighting the Annals articles to be used for medical teaching, under the category “Humanism and Professionalism,” Annals editor Darren Taichman writes, “This short graphic narrative succinctly tells the story of a patient whose blood work “fell through the cracks” during the transition from one primary care doctor to another. Use this story to: Ask your graduating senior residents how they will plan for the transition… Read More
The Truth About Stacey
Special guest review by Kerri Sparling of the diabetes blog sixuntilme.com. Stacey McGill had diabetes and – holy islets – she was cool. She was one of the lead characters in Ann M. Martin’s The Baby-Sitters Club series, acting as treasurer of the club. You can go deep in this wiki, where Stacey is described as having “a very sophisticated style, which comes from having lived in New York. She loves wearing flashy clothes and jewelry and doing different things with her hair, which she keeps looking fabulous.” FABULOUS! Some of Stacey’s likes are cited: “babysitting, math, money, shopping, pigs, Mary Poppins,… Read More
Texting My Pancreas
Creative and funny online comics by Kim Vlasnik, discovered via everyone’s pals at I Heart Guts. From Kim’s bio page, Living with diabetes comes with its own unique set of challenges: in addition to the physical things like injections or carb counting, we deal with emotions, anxieties, and fears that most people have the luxury of never knowing. Until I found the diabetes online community (DOC) in late 2009, I had no idea how much I needed the support it can offer. For me, living with diabetes feels much more bearable when I think of it as a team sport. I began writing Texting My Pancreas in… Read More
Diabetes is After Your Dick!
Cathy Leamy (Metrokitty) has put her comic “Diabetes is After Your Dick” online. It is also available for purchase from her site. Leamy presented on this patient education comic at the 2012 Toronto Comics & Medicine conference. The podcast of her talk is here. Guest review by Sumin Kim, student in the “Comics Narratives: Illness, Disability, & Recovery” course, Art Therapy Program, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I chose to review the comic “Diabetes is after your dick!” among a bunch of books because the title was so fascinating to me. Diabetes, relating to dick? How interesting! It is really… Read More
Sugar Baby
Guest review by Hannah Marie Williams, student in the “Comics Narratives: Illness, Disability, & Recovery” course, Art Therapy Program, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “Sugar Baby,” by Nomi Kane, is a personal narrative comic about her experience getting diagnosed with diabetes, and a series of childhood experiences after. What I really appreciated about this particular story was the stories that did not have to do with disability directly, like the section “Zewish,” and the over-arching narrative of her wanting a dog. Too often in disability narratives, I feel as if the parts of the subject’s life that don’t deal… Read More
New Podcast Wednesday: Comics in Patient Education, Part One
Use the Quicktime player above to view images along with the audio. If you don’t have Quicktime, you can listen to the audio-only version below. The first panel podcast from the 2012 Toronto Comics & Medicine conference is on the topic of Comics in Patient Education. In part one of this panel, we will hear from Cathy Leamy and Allison Zemek. The full Q&A from the panel will follow next week’s podcast. Cathy Leamy is an independent cartoonist, specializing in autobiography, humor, and education. She also works as a web developer at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA, USA, building… Read More