One of the high points of my trip to the UK was giving a spur-of-the-moment talk to my dear friends’ daughter’s primary school class, entitled “What Does a Medical Illustrator Do?”. Together we assembled a map of the human body, placing organs in their location on a life-sized paper outline (traced from a class volunteer), and talking about what the various organs do. At the end of the day I received a sheaf of hand-drawn thank-you notes, which I will cherish.
The conference Ethics Under Cover: Comics, Medicine and Society took place at the beginning of July. It was a superb meeting, as the C&M meetings always are, in my experience: a stimulating, democratic mix of voices, a nourishing meeting of minds. I presented a nascent paper on the role of anatomical illustration and diagnostic imagery within the visual language of comics, focussing on Judith Vanistendael’s When David Lost His Voice; moderated a panel of excellent presentations on comics in patient education; and took part in a concluding panel discussing the ethics of comics in medicine. And–best of all–met up with friends in the art & medicine community, including Lucy Lyons, whose drawing of me (and other speakers) I’m holding here, while waiting for a train from Brighton to London.
MK Czerwiec is posting the conference presentations, week by week, on the Graphic Medicine podcast.