The Center for Cartoon Studies has long championed the use of comics to create discourse and reflection on healthcare through workshops, fellowships, and hosting an International Graphic Medicine conference.
The International Comics and Medicine Conference
The 2018 International Comics and Medicine Conference, hosted by the Center for Cartoon Studies and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, explored the theme of the “Ways We Work.” Participants explored how Graphic Medicine is being explored in public health-care centers, classrooms, home studios, private clinics, libraries, and bedsides.
The conference included keynote speakers David Macaulay (The Way We Work), Susan Squier (Graphic Medicine Manifesto),and Whit Taylor (The Nib, The New Yorker), as well as dozens of peer reviewed papers, lectures, and workshops. Many of the talks and workshops were depicted through graphic recording, and are available to the public.
Publications
The Applied Cartooning Lab has released two Graphic Medicine publications that approach healthcare in different ways. Let’s Talk About It: A Graphic Guide To Mental Health was created to provide knowledge and resources for students to help them be healthier and more resilient. The comic’s warm and playful style was designed to help destigmatize the conversation around mental health. With additional support of the Highline Public Schools in King County, WA, the book was translated into Spanish.
Health and Wealth: A Graphic Guide to the U.S. Healthcare is a 32 page comic book that is designed to provide a baseline understanding of this confounding system so people can feel a little less intimidated by its complexity and more empowered to advocate for themselves and those they care for.
Classes and Workshops
The Applied Cartooning Lab has offered a Graphic Medicine Elective to Dartmouth medical students with the goal of exploring how comics can be used as a tool in medical practice, and as a way to reflect and discuss the experience of medical school. Students met weekly and the class culminated in a print anthology.
