Discovery and Distress: Medical Student’s Reflection on Anatomy through Graphic Medicine

Yeonjae Lee, B.S. – Medical Student, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Daniela Krahe, B.S. – Medical Student, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Nathan Gray, MD – Assistant Professor of Medicine, Palliative Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Abstract: Human dissection is a powerful and formative experience in medical training, during which some students experience psychological or moral distress. Recently, there has been growing interest in providing opportunities through the humanities to reflect on dissection. The field of “Graphic Medicine,” which combines comics with health discourse, proposes comic art as an effective way to share stories and process high-impact experiences. Hypothesizing that graphic medicine would be useful for exploring the complex responses that accompany dissection, we hosted a voluntary reflection event for graduate students in anatomy that culminated in attendees sketching a 3-panel comic to describe their best, worst and/or most memorable day in anatomy. Using a structured quantitative visual content analysis, we analyzed drawings for variables – including setting, bodily region of dissection, emotions, and featured items.

Of the 25 attendees, 14 submitted comics for content review. Participants depicted a spectrum of emotions, including excitement, curiosity, distress, fear, isolation, camaraderie, and shock. Common features included bone saws, accidental tissue exposure, perceived pressure from instructors, and shed tears. Some students depicted a mismatch between the apparent ease of their instructors and their own discomfort in approaching sensitive areas of the body or perceived roughness in dissection. In this presentation, we share results of our content analysis along with examples of the breadth of emotion revealed in these simple drawings, proposing that Graphic Medicine could be a valuable tool to help students interrogate and share their experiences and varied reactions to anatomical education.

Keywords: Graphic medicine, Human dissection, Preclinical medical education