Graphic Truths: The Making (and Unmaking) of a Doctor
An anthology of comics, edited by Shelley Wall PhD, Josh Feder MD, Jillian Horton MD, and Allan Peterkin MD.
We are seeking comics about your current and/or past experiences for an anthology to be published by Penn State University Press as part of its Graphic Medicine series.
Submission instructions appear below.
Deadline: July 31, 2020 (extended from initial CFP)
The arts provide a powerful means to represent the intense and complex process of becoming a doctor. The medium of comics, with its combination of image and text and its rich vocabulary of narrative conventions, offers a fresh means to convey the nuances of communication within the clinical context. Until now, no anthology of comics has captured the experience of medical trainees across the arc of their journey, from applicant to fully-fledged physician. The volume we are proposing, tentatively entitled Graphic Truths: The Making (and Unmaking) of a Doctor, will reflect the breadth, as well as the heights and depths, of medical training across countries and across specialties. This anthology will provide a channel for medical trainees and those close to them to share their stories, and give the wider public a meaningful and accessible glimpse “behind the scenes” of medical training and practice.
No art experience necessary!
Images can be simple. What we're interested in are your stories, told with image and text. Submissions can be single panels, or stories told in a sequence of panels. Specifications (length, page size, and file type) are detailed below.
We invite submissions on themes such as:
We also welcome submissions on any other aspect of medical training. Surprise us!
Technical specifications:
We will be posting videos on this site to assist you with image preparation in the near future.
Originality: Work must be original to you, and previously unpublished.
Patient confidentiality: The privacy of patients and clients of health care practitioners must be protected. Physicians and health care practitioners who write about their patients or colleagues must alter any identifying details and characteristics.
Acceptance: Final acceptance will be subject to approval by the editorial team.
Please send the following information to editors.graphic.truths@gmail.com
Upload your submission to our Dropbox at this link.
Shelley Wall (co-editor): Shelley Wall MScBMC PhD is a certified medical illustrator and an assistant professor in the Biomedical Communications graduate program, Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Toronto. She has a long-standing interest in visual storytelling in healthcare, and has been on the steering committee for the annual Comics & Medicine conferences since 2012.
Joshua D. Feder (co-editor): Josh Feder MD is an experienced and compassionate psychiatrist serving children, adults, and families in and around Solana Beach, California. With more than three decades of experience, Dr. Feder is board-certified in general psychiatry as well as child and adolescent psychiatry. Outside of his practice, Dr. Feder recently authored the highly acclaimed Child Medication Fact Book for Psychiatric Practice and serves as Editor-in-Chief at Carlat Child Psychiatry Report. He actively volunteers in communities affected by armed conflict, including the Middle East, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, and Southeast Asia. Dr. Feder also teaches at the Fielding Graduate University School of Leadership Studies in the Infant and Early Childhood Development Ph.D. program, and at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry.
Jillian Horton (co-editor): Jillian Horton MD is a graduate of McMaster Medical School and completed her residency and fellowship in general internal medicine at the University of Toronto in 2004. She was the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Student Affairs at the University of Manitoba from 2014–2018 and now directs programs in wellness and medical humanities at the Max Rady College of Medicine. She has won awards for mentorship, professionalism, and teaching at the undergraduate level. She is also a mother, musician, and writer.
Allan Peterkin (co-editor): Allan Peterkin MD is a Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the University of Toronto where he heads the program In Health, Arts and Humanities. He is the author of sixteen books for adults and children, including textbooks on physician wellbeing and on the medical care of sexual minorities, and he has published short fiction, poetry, book reviews and essays, which explore cultural, medical and psychological themes. Dr. Peterkin is a founding editor of Ars Medica: A Journal of Medicine, the Arts, and Humanities. He has published poetry, fiction and critical essays on narrative medicine and the use of the humanities in medical education in Canadian and international journals.
Kratika Mishra (project manager)