Graphic Medicine, Humanizing Healthcare and Novel Approaches in Anatomical Education

This book contains subjects by authors with a fresh, exciting and extensive focus within the medical humanities, offering the reader chapters which include the history of medical illustration, Graphic Medicine as a vehicle for the expression of humanistic dimensions of healthcare, equitable and ethical medical illustrations, as well as novel, art-based approaches in anatomical education.

Authors consider the role of visual narratives in medical and scientific illustration, the unique affordances of the comics medium, the history of comics as a form of medical and scientific visualization, and the role of comics as didactic tools and as vehicles for the expression of the humanistic dimensions of healthcare. A chapter considers ethical and equitable implications in global healthcare practice, and highlights the work currently being undertaken to address inappropriate and problematic depictions of people in global health visualizations. This will inform the reader of emergingand current thinking about visual communication and the use of images in the public domain, as well as in the healthcare and education sectors. Novel approaches in anatomical education include the benefits of three-dimensional anatomy models made of felt, visual analogies as a method to enhance students’ learning of histology, the use of the hands for learning anatomy, and visualizing anatomy through art, archaeology and medicine.

This book will appeal to readers who have an interest in the medical humanities, Graphic Medicine, and ethical medical and anatomical illustrations. These include academic and non-academic readers, medical students, medical educators, clinicians, health-care workers, as well as policy makers.

Leonard Shapiro is affiliated with the Department of Human Biology, at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He has a keen interest in Anatomy Education and has developed a number of art-based exercises to address and improve students’ three-dimensional (3D) spatial awareness and observation ability. His courses and online workshops are in collaboration with lecturers who are actively engaged in improving education methodology in anatomy. These are offered to medical students in South Africa and abroad. Leonard has developed a multi-sensory observation method that crucially employs the sense of touch (haptics) coupled with the simultaneous act of drawing. It is called the Haptico-visual observation and drawing (HVOD) method. In anatomy education, the benefits of using the HVOD method include the enhanced observation of the 3D form of anatomical parts, the cognitive memorization of anatomical parts as a 3D mental picture, improved spatial orientation within the volume ofanatomical parts and an ability to draw. Leonard has taught the HVOD method at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), Newcastle University (England), The University of British Columbia (Canada), Carnegie Mellon University (USA), The Gordon Museum of Pathology at King's College London (England), University College Cork (Ireland) and Weill Cornell Medical College (USA). Leonard contributes to the anatomy education discourse by presenting at anatomy conferences as well as via publications and articles. Leonard graduated in BSocSci and in BA Fine Art (Hons) from the University of Cape Town.