Med students learn how graphics can effectively communicate: Why not law students? Lawyers? Mediators?

Those of you who have been following with me the pictograph path (using images to communicate) may guess that I was happy to learn of a program at Penn State College of Medicine. From the Penn State Web page:

Since 2009, fourth-year medical students at Penn State College of Medicine have created comics as part of a course called “Graphic Storytelling and Medical Narratives.” The course was developed to show fourth-year medical students how graphics and text can be used to effectively communicate complex medical narratives, and to help students develop their own stories into graphic depictions.

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Of course not all medical students are naturally gifted writers or artists, but as one can see from the following pages, everyone can tell stories and everyone can draw pictures. While this course is unlike any other in their medical school experience, the students rise to the task, sharing their reflections on becoming a doctor with honesty, wit, and creativity.

Enjoy the following Graphic Storytelling and Medical Narratives by the medical students at Penn State College of Medicine!

Click to see what the medical students created.

Because of the benefits of communicating with visual methods in addition to or other than the written word, I imagine the medical students learn much about their own stories and ways to communicate with patients, colleagues, family, and friends. Images are

being used for communication in the medical profession (see, e.g, "Using pictures to improve health communication") but less so in the legal profession—yet. A friend and colleagues Susanne Hoogwater does help lawyers and her other clients to illustrate complicated legal documents but expansion of the numbers of us doing so will add to client service.

And perhaps to making the law school experience more productive, demonstrative, and worthwhile.

Not feeling confident in my drawing skills, I have been using photos for visual communication. Drawing is not the only medium for communicating through pictures. (I will be offering a workshop in visual communication using both photos and drawings in the fall.)

To learn more about what we gain when we use images to communicate, read these two books (both written by neuroscientists):

• The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist 
• Opening the Mind's Eye by Ian Robertson

To read a post about visual communication in the law, click for "Visual Law: What Lawyers Need to Learn from Information Designers" (Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law).

Image credit: Penn State.

Hat tip: Mary K. Clark.

Note (added at 9:30 AM Mountain): I received an email from Professor Neal Feigenson, an excerpt from which I post below with permission.

Christina Spiesel and I have been teaching a course on visual communication and persuasion at Quinnipiac since 2000.  I'm attaching (i) an article from our law school magazine about the course (the article is from 2001 but it's still accurate enough), and (ii) a more academic discussion of our pedagogy etc. (a chapter from a 2005 book).

Note (added at 10:15 AM Mountain): Professor Shari Motro also wrote to me. Her email, also posted with permission, is here:

I used to teach a class teaming law students w/ graphic design students to translate legal concepts into visual form. It was a blast. This is a great and largely underdeveloped area.
Here's a piece I wrote about how lawyers' ignorance of the importance of graphic design hampered the Middle East peace process:
http://www.richmond.edu/_common_KP3/files/faculty-staff-bio/law/publications/Motro_Swiss_Cheese_Map_Legal_Affairs.pdf