Social media art enables self-expression, education for health care professionals
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Self-expression through ‘graphic medicine’ and illustrations on social media can help normalize emotions and challenges health care professional face and educate those studying to work in the medical field.
“It dawned on me, I could use my artistic tendencies to my advantage to really teach myself and use art as a didactic tool, Michael Natter, MD, said during his presentation at the Association for Healthcare Social Media. “I decided to put [my doodles] on social media. I realized my peers were finding them beneficial as well. To my surprise I actually gained a bit of a following on social media channels, primarily on Instagram. It’s interesting to me that there was such a positive response to these illustrations.”
Natter, an art student prior to going into medicine, noted he developed a visual language to translate difficult and complicated medical jargon to break it down and understand it.
He added humor to his illustrations to make medical topics more attainable.
“Adding an element of humor added extra stickiness to it and the stickier the topic and the concept the easier it will be to retain it, remember it and recall it,” he said.
He doodled to express himself during challenges he faced during medical school, residency and to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic
Natter said many in the health care field feel “imposter syndrome” and feel inadequate and his graphics helped to normalize it these feelings.
“Social media has created this form of narrative medicine or graphic medicine and graphic medicine is graphic novel story telling of medical topics from both patients and practitioners and I leaned toward that medium because I was able to tell my story, my emotions, my colleagues’ stories and my patients stories,” Natter said.
He noted a lot is expected of health care professionals and feels his illustrations show health care professionals are vulnerable and normalized it.
“I hope to change the culture that is in medicine that is very rigid and structured and conservative and make it more human,” he said.
He used his doodles to express the burnout he has felt during COVID-19 and also depicted many of his peer’s personal stories during the pandemic.
“We all in health care have a responsibility and privilege to our patients and that responsibly extends to what we can do on social media and the platforms that we have are an excellent way of connecting with more people in a way that is appropriate and professional but also fun and accessible and teaching medicine and facts and education,” Natter said. “We are all one human race and we all need to help each other. We can all do it together on social media.”
Collapse
Natter M. Inspiring Awareness through Self-Expression on Social Media. Presented at: Association for Healthcare Social Media meeting; August 8, 2020 (virtual meeting).
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts