The use of comic books as a teaching tool, traditionally limited to primary and secondary studies, is increasingly being incorporated into higher education, correlating with the social acceptance of the format during the last decades and the growing body of comic books addressed to an adult audience. The graphic nature of comics, blending visual and textual information in a synthetic and very effective way to communicate complex matters, has facilitated that many medical institutions and regulatory offices develop materials based on graphic narrative to reinforce their outreach strategies, disease awareness campaigns, and general communication of scientific advances to society. Comic-books created ad hoc for these purposes can also be used as complementary materials in health sciences lectures or practical sessions. However, a strong potential for the teaching of issues related to health and disease can be found among plenty of graphic novels and related works that were created without any intention to become study materials. This is the case of a wide catalogue of comics that have been collected under the label of “Graphic Medicine”, most of them based on autobiographical experiences. Since the vast majority of degrees in health sciences are strongly focused in the teaching of the scientific definition of disease, from a pathophysiological perspective, these comic books offer a great opportunity to enrich teaching with social and personal reflections on pathologies that offer students a broader spectrum of concepts that go beyond the general scope of the subjects.

At the Department of Physiology in the University of Valencia, we have been using this approach to provide students with a more complex observation of different diseases, from neurological (i.e. Alzheimer’s disease, Autistic Spectrum Disorders) to eating disorders (i.e. anorexia and bulimia) by means of reading-club activities during which different works, both fictional and autobiographical, are read by students and then discussed live in the class. These activities have been performed in different subjects and degrees, and after some pilot activities, we have been conducting a series of debates focused in eating disorders and the representation of health professionals and caregivers in the pages of the studied comic books. The results collected through several academic courses and subjects suggests that the use of graphic medicine comic books can boost empathy in health science students, providing them of a novel perspective to become more complete and socially aware clinicians.

Keywords: Graphic narrative, comics, medicine, health, deep learning.