Comic Book Club

[Joan Tu]

Currently, I am working on applying for arts grants in order to create a comic book about my experience of entering and leaving medical school. The main themes of this book are post-traumatic growth, reclaiming agency, and storytelling/narrating my own inner experience.

I think the project may be of interest to patients who would like to understand or influence health professions education. Furthermore, there are many common themes between being a healthcare student overcoming adversity and being a patient overcoming adversity, and healthcare storytelling.

I would like to know if there are any patients who would have interest in this project which I could include in the grant as part of "artists and community collaboration". Some patient involvement or medical humanities activities and ideas that come to mind could be:

• a patient organizes a book club to read the book together with other patients
• a patient writes an honest or critical review about the comic book for an external blog, news channel, or journal
• a patient or group of patients provide feedback on the book at various stages (e.g. manuscript, rough draft, final draft)

I would welcome other ideas as well.

If you have an interest in this project, I would need to know 1) how you could see yourself being involved and 2) how much I should budget for your involvement in the grant application, and 3) a brief summary or CV of previous patient involvement which I can include in the grant application to show that you are part of a patient community or patient activities. The grants are competitive and there is no guarantee the project will be funded, however there is a small chance the project could be funded. You can email me at joantu403@gmail.com with items 1, 2, and 3 above if interested.