Talking Graphic Meds and Mom's Cancer at 20

My class. Faces are blurred because I didn't ask their permission to post a photo.

I did a talk and workshop for a small group of med students taking a course on Medical Humanities and Ethics at Stanford University today. Everybody made a comic about a health-related subject, after which--by the powers vested in me by mostly me--I dubbed them Practitioners of Graphic Medicine quod erat demonstrandum. They made some genuinely good comics.

Mom's Cancer is about 20 years old now. I did the webcomic in 2004-2005 and Abrams published the book in 2006. I am astonished and gratified that not only is my family’s story still in print but that it is taught in medical schools, and once in a while I get to talk about it and the qualities of comics that, I think, make them a unique storytelling medium. The fact that I give those talks to med students who were toddlers when I made the book is its own weird, unsettling reward. 

But seriously: if you'd told me 20 years ago that I'd be lecturing at medical schools in 2024, I would have believed you less than if you'd said I'd be living on the Moon. With a jetpack.

By the way, if you ever take a header off an electric scooter and land on the sidewalk like a sack of cement, do it at a medical school. One poor unfortunate soul did that right in front of me today. I was first on the scene, but by the time I asked, "Hey, are you all right?" we were surrounded by eight people in surgical scrubs doing a full exam. I left him in better hands, and later saw him limping along with his busted scooter. Glad I could help.