Graphic medicine (also referred to as ‘comics in medicine’) is a rapidly emerging area of scholarship and innovation in healthcare that combines narrative medicine with the power of graphics to enhance communication about patient and provider experiences. This workshop will provide an overview of graphic medicine applications for medical education, patient experience, provider burnout, and resilience programming. Since graphic medicine involves both reading and making comics, both aspects of graphic medicine will be incorporated into this workshop. Participants will have the opportunity to make a comic (or complete the text for a pre-drawn comic for those who do not consider themselves artists), as well as read excerpts from the graphic medicine canon.

Attendees will learn to:

1. Define ‘graphic medicine’ and describe various uses of comics in medicine

2. Explore ways comics in medical education might enhance ACGME core competencies in interpersonal communication and professionalism.

3. Describe how reading comics about complex care transitions or the patient experience of being treated for cancer can address the ACGME systems-based learning objectives.

4. Identify opportunities for publishing graphic medicine pieces in medical journals and comics publications