Graphic Medicine Podcast

Welcome to a new season of the Graphic Medicine Podcast! On today’s show, audio from the opening night of the Seattle Comics & Medicine conference, Thursday June 15. You will hear from three speakers in a row. The first will be Seattle conference organizer and host Mita Mahato. Mita is a Seattle-based cut paper, collage, and comics artist, whose work explores the transformative capacities of found and handmade papers. She is also an Associate Professor of English at the University of Puget Sound, serves on the board for the arts organization Short Run Seattle, one of the sponsors of the Comics & Medicine conference. You can learn more about Mita’s work on her website, theseframesarehidingplaces.com. Mita’s opening remarks touch on the theme of the conference, Access Points. After her opening remarks, Mita will introduce Matthew Noe, librarian from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Graphic Medicine fellow for the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Northeast Region. Matthew will pose the opening query: “What Does the Literature Say?” (Spoiler: He needs your help!) You can contact Matthew at Matthew dot Noe at umassmed dot edu or @NoetheMatt on Twitter. Finally, Mita will introduce our last speaker for the episode, Jared Gardner. Jared is a Professor in the Department of English specializing in American literature, comics, film and popular culture. He is the author of Master Plots: Race and the Founding of an American Literature, 1787-1845; Projections: Comics and the History of 21st-century Storytelling; and The Rise and Fall of Early American Magazine Culture. Other books and writings can be found at jaredgardner.org and he is @guttergeek on Twitter. He also serves as director of the Popular Culture Studies program at OSU and as editor of Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society. Jared’s opening lecture is titled “Social Ills: Graphic Medicine Beyond the Clinic.” Download episode.

In this new episode of the Graphic Medicine Podcast, we hear from the creative team behind the wonderful graphic medicine narrative “Keeper of the Clouds” – writer Liza Futerman and illustrator Evi Tampold. We’ll also hear from Seattle Conference chief organizer-on-the-ground Mita Mahato. She’ll tell us a few insider tips about Seattle and what we can expect. Download episode.

This episode features a conversation with Tyler Page, creator of Raised on Ritalin: A Personal Story of ADHD, Medication, and Modern Psychiatry. Download episode. 

My guests on this episode are Monica Lalanda, an emergency room physician from Spain, and Muna AlJawad, a geriatrician from Brighton, UK. Both of them are making and using comics in their medical practice. Find out how in this episode! Support for this podcast comes from Penn State College of Medicine, Department of Humanities, the nation’s oldest Humanities Department within a medical school, pioneers of innovations in medical education since 1967. Download episode.

On this week’s show, two doctors making comics. First up is an interview with Carlo Jose San Juan, the creator of Callous Comics, a comic strip from the Philippines that tells the story of a doctor and her guardian duck. Later in the episode I talk with Ian Williams about his weekly Guardian strip Sick Notes. The Graphic Medicine podcast is brought to you by Penn State Hershey College of Medicine, Department of Humanities. Download episode.

The Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort Study (PHACS) is a longitudinal cohort study investigating the long-term effects of HIV infection and ARV (antiretroviral) medications in children and young adults who were born with HIV or born exposed to HIV. The study follows newborns, young children, adolescents, and young adults. One part of the study is discussed in the presentation “Comics as an Exploration of Spaces Connected to HIV to Facilitate Maternal Disclosure.” Researcher Claire Berman presented this study, and the comics related to it, at our 2015 conference in Riverside, California and on a Health Comics panel at San Diego ComicCon. On this episode we will discuss this comic and the process that lead to its creation. My guests on this episode are Claire Berman – director of health education and communication for PHACS based at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, presented on the Comics & Health panel at Comic-Con in San Diego and at the 2015 Comics & Medicine conference in Riverside, California, Lauren Lee  – artist of the comics used in the program, and Leslie P. –  Vice Chair of our Community Advisory Board (CAB) for this project Project background: In the U.S., the majority (76%) of women with HIV/AIDS have a child under the age of 18,and disclosure of their HIV status to their child is one of the top three concerns cited by mothers living with HIV. Yet the rate of maternal disclosure is low, with a median rate of 41%. Maternal disclosure is often a challenging and complex process over time, and may be accompanied by a range of dynamic emotions and reactions unique to each family. Mothers often lack culturally relevant resources around disclosure of their own status. This project engages Community Advisory Board (CAB) members, caregivers, study participants, clinical staff, and health educators from around the U.S. infacilitated dialogues, story circles, interviews, and focus groups to develop culturally relevant disclosure resources for HIV-positive caregivers and their children. The resulting two comics – “What is HIV?” and “Living with HIV” – and accompanying caregiver guide are an exploration of spaces connected to HIV, including the virus itself, the body, the family and home, medical clinics, and antiretroviral treatments. The non-stigmatizing exploration of these spaces aims to, in turn, create a healthy, affirming, and empowering conversational space for HIV-positive caregivers and their children, where beginning a process of maternal disclosure and a discussion of HIV and stigma is possible. The Comics can be seen, downloaded, and you can read more information here: https://phacsstudy.org/Education-Hub/HIV-Disclosure-Comics. This podcast is sponsored by the Department of Humanities at Penn State Hershey College of Medicine. For more information, go to http://www2.med.psu.edu/humanities/ Download episode

Canadian Sima Elizabeth Shefrin is a fabric artist and presenter from the 2015 Comics & Medicine conference. Her recently published book, Embroidered Cancer Comics, is a  series of embroidered panels about her husband’s diagnosis and treatment for prostate cancer. It was recently published by Jessica Kingsley. In my “What Are You Reading?!” segment, I’m joined by The Bad Doctor himself, Ian Williams. He shares three titles he’s been reading recently. Download episode.

In this week’s podcast, Elizabeth Hewitt from the Ohio State University presents “Incurable Time: The Graphic Temporalities of Autoimmune Disease.” Her talk was recorded at our 2015 Riverside Comics & Medicine conference. Also, I talk with Ann Fox of Davidson College about what she’s reading, as well as her new Graphic Medicine course. Keep your eyes on your screens as images will accompany the episode. Support for this podcast comes from Penn State College of Medicine, Department of Humanities, the nation’s oldest Humanities Department within a medical school, pioneers of innovations in medical education since 1967. To learn more about Penn State College of Medicine Department of Humanities, go to www2.med.psu.edu/humanities. Download episode.

In this episode, we feature Jordana Greenblatt’s presentation from the 2015 Comics & Medicine conference, titled “Internal and External Spaces of Threat and Dissolution: HIV/AIDS Graphic Memoir.” This presentation was part of the “Comics as Performance” panel in Riverside.  We will be hearing much more in the coming year about comics as performance as our 2016 Dundee conference theme expands on this area of thought and scholarship. And in our “What Are You Reading?!” segment, Tangles creator Sarah Leavitt talks with MK about Tom Hart’s Rosalee Lightning. She also discusses what she is working on now. Download episode.