Grant to advance HDI’s work in graphic medicine
LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 12, 2024) — Thanks to a grant from the WITH Foundation, the University of Kentucky’s Human Development Institute (HDI) will have the opportunity to create new resources in the emerging field of graphic medicine.
“Graphic medicine is a field which explores the intersection between comics and illustration or graphic formats with the field of healthcare, health and medicine,” said Erin Fitzgerald, the program coordinator for UK's College and Career Studies Program led by HDI. She also brings her expertise in graphic medicine to the project.
Fitzgerald explained that graphic medicine frequently uses sequential art forms like comics to explore medical topics. Comics, Fitzgerald said, are one of the more common formats used in the field, but there are other forms of visual media that it uses.
Graphic medicine can allow for more voices in medical fields, reduces the distance between patient and doctor, and follows the principles of universal design by offering easily understood explanations of medical information.
With support from the WITH Foundation, HDI hopes to expand its library of graphic medicine resources. WITH promotes comprehensive healthcare for adults with developmental disabilities in the U.S. that is designed to address their unique and fundamental needs.
“We want to curate existing graphic medicine materials that might be relevant for people, and then create new graphic medicine materials using teams of people,” said Laura Butler, the project director. “Each material will have a team that has a person with a disability who’s identifying an issue in healthcare that they want to discuss or improve, and they will work with one of our project team members as well as a creative — a visual or graphic artist — to bring that graphic medicine piece to life.”
Members of the collaborative teams will be identified on an as-needed basis in order to foster a fluid and creative space for innovation.
This project will create more opportunities to use stories of lived experience to address barriers to healthcare access, as well as to increase understanding of healthcare processes and experiences for both patients and practitioners.
HDI and WITH have partnered before. The collaboration previously produced a short comic that explained the process of drawing blood. Though Butler said she didn’t recognize it as graphic medicine at the time, now she’d think of it as a high-quality example of the form. This project aims to create similar resources.
In addition, the grant will allow HDI to deepen its relationship with UK HealthCare. The two organizations are already working together on a transition-to-work program for high school students with intellectual and developmental disabilities called Project SEARCH.
Butler and Fitzgerald do not yet know what specific materials will be created with this project, but both are excited to see how this work could help eliminate barriers to quality healthcare for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“So many people have stories about things that have gone wrong with healthcare,” Butler said. “Anything we can do to make that process easier is good. Hopefully these types of things will make it less intimidating and less overwhelming for people.”
Fitzgerald agreed, noting that stories of the challenges people with disabilities face when finding quality healthcare often go untold. This project, however, would put the power in their hands to help solve those problems.
“It is so rare when people with lived experience with disability are asked to participate in something as an equal partner and as a consultant,” Fitzgerald said. “The way a lot of our systems in society are structured is that we look at the majority — and anything outside of that, we kind of get to it when we get to it. So, this kind of collaboration is really important to me, where we start with perspective and experience that is usually considered as an afterthought.”
About WITH Foundation
Established in 2002, WITH Foundation is a private foundation. Its mission is to promote the establishment of comprehensive healthcare for adults with developmental disabilities that is designed to address their unique and fundamental needs.
The Foundation’s initial grantmaking benefited the disability community. In 2011, the Foundation began to focus its support on organizations and projects that promote the establishment of comprehensive and accessible healthcare for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
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