Representations of patients’ experiences of autonomy in graphic medicine

Abstract

I advocate using graphic medicine in introductory medical ethics courses to help trainees learn about patients’ experiences of autonomy. Graphic narratives about this content offer trainees opportunities to gain insights into making diagnoses and recommending treatments. Graphic medicine can also illuminate aspects of patients’ experiences of autonomy differently than other genres. Specifically, comics allow readers to consider visual and text-based representations of a patient’s actions, speech, thoughts, and emotions. Here, I use Ellen Forney’s Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir and Peter Dunlap-Shohl’s My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson’s as two examples that can serve as pedagogical resources.