Graphic Medicine: Drawing Connections Between Comics, Storytelling, and Medicine

Can comic books contribute positively to the discourse of health and disease? How might comics provide insights into illness, allow for patient education, or facilitate medical training? Graphic medicine represents a disruptive opportunity for healthcare communication. More than just pictures, graphic medicine represents a coming together of illustrative art, narrative storytelling, and medical information. As a growing field, graphic medicine has adapted the popularity of comics and picture books to convey healthcare narratives in a new way, providing insight into the patient, caregiver, and clinician experiences of illness. This didactic will highlight the different applications of graphic medicine in both clinical and educational spaces. Through didactics and discussion, this session will provide participants with an introduction to the history, theory, and current use of graphic storytelling in medicine. By promoting and understanding graphic medicine, attendees may feel inspired and empowered to engage with graphic storytelling in their journey through medicine.

Presenters:

  • Moises Gallegos, MD, MPH
  • Vytas P. Karalius, MD, MPH, MA
Authors

  • Moises Gallegos, MD, MPH

    Stanford Emergency Medicine

    Moises grew up in Southern California. He attended Harvard College where he studied Neurobiology and topics in Mind/Brain/Behavior. He earned his MD from Stanford School of Medicine and concurrently earned a Masters in Public Health from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed his residency and was Chief Resident at Baylor College of Medicine while working at Ben Taub General Hospital. He began his academic career as an Assistant Professor in the Henry JN Taub Department of Emergency Medicine at Ben Taub and rejoined the Stanford Department of Emergency Medicine in 2019 as a Clinical Assistant Professor. He is the Clerkship Director for EMED301A, the required/core Emergency Medicine rotation. He is currently completing coursework to obtain his Master of Education in the Health Professions from Johns Hopkins University School of Education.

  • Vytas P. Karalius, MD, MPH, MA

    Stanford University

    "The Resident Unionization Study: A Qualitative Analysis of Drivers and Outcomes"

    Dr. Karalius is an Assistant Program Director and is completing his Medical Education Scholarship Fellowship at Stanford University’s Department of Emergency Medicine. He earned his medical degree from the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine and completed his emergency medicine residency at Northwestern University. He also holds a Master of Public Health and a Master of Medical Sciences from Loyola University.
    Dr. Karalius also continues to serve as a faculty member for the Harvard Macy Institute Program for Educators in the Health Professions, and recently awarded the Exceptional Faculty designation. As a former SAEM RAMS Board member, Dr. Karalius continues to be involved with SAEM and is a member of the SAEM Education Committee, SAEM Wellness Committee, and SAEM Equity & Inclusion Committee.
    Dr. Karalius’ primary focus is on graduate medical education, physician/trainee wellness and workforce attrition. He was recently awared the SAEMF Education Research Training Grant in 2024, for his work focusing on resident unionization as it relates to trainee well-being. He is involved in numerous projects and sitting on numerous department, institutional and national committees focused on wellness and medical education, including the Diversity Advisory Group at Stanford, School of Medicine Admissions Committee, and SAEM. Dr. Karalius has co-authored articles for peer-reviewed publications such as Annals of Emergency Medicine and Journal of Graduate Medical Education. He also has contributed to numerous online publications and podcasts, including articles, podcasts and national webinars on education and physician/trainee wellbeing.

Related Media