exploreID: Graphic Narratives in Healthcare
Date: Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Time: 6 p.m. – 8 pm
Location: IIT Institute of Design, 3137 S. Federal St., 2nd floor
What do we mean when we say design? Through exploreID, we invite you to explore design at IIT Institute of Design (ID) through different lenses and projects.
In a project funded by UChicago Medicine’s Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence, ID students and faculty explored how visual narratives could better educate patients about radiation therapy. Understanding radiation treatment can be overwhelming for cancer patients and their caregivers, especially since patients often receive information at points of high emotional stress. Hear Tomoko Ichikawa, clinical professor at the Institute of Design, talk with UChicago Medicine physicians Dr. Daniel Golden and Dr. Brian Callender about how communication design can help patients have more constructive conversations with their doctors.
About the speakers
Tomoko Ichikawa, Clinical Professor, IIT Institute of Design
Tomoko Ichikawa is a clinical professor of design at the Institute of Design. With 20 years experience in communication simplification and information design, Tomoko’s focus has been on creating visuals that clearly reflect the content structure to effectively communicate. After receiving her B.A. in interpersonal and intercultural communication at International Christian University in Tokyo, she pursued her interest in the visual world that led her to IIT Institute of Design where she received her M.S. degree. Her interest has focused on the syntax and semantic aspects of the visual language, using appropriate sign systems to match information structure to visual structure. In particular, diagrams and, more recently, the emerging field of computer-generated data visualizations are her area of exploration.
Brian Callender, MD and assistant professor of medicine, University of Chicago
Brian Callender, MD is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and a core faculty member at the Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge. He is interested in the intersection of comics, design and the delivery of healthcare and how this intersection can improve the experience of illness and patient education. He teach several courses in the health humanities, including: The Body in Medicine and the Performing Arts, Graphic Medicine: Concepts and Practice, and The Art of Healing: Medical Aesthetics in the USSR and US. Through grant support from the Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence, he has partnered with the IIT Institute of Design to create patient education materials incorporating graphic narrative.
Dan Golden, Radiation Oncologist, University of Chicago Medicine
Dan believes that patients need to understand their disease process and medical care to maximize their active participation in the care process while reducing anxiety about treatment. Working as a radiation oncologist at the University of Chicago Medicine, he uses radiation to treat patients with all types of cancer. Dan has enjoyed developing a unique interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration between physicians at the University of Chicago Medicine and design experts at IIT Institute of Design to explore novel approaches to patient education and patient-physician communication. He has a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and both a medical degree and masters in health professions education from the University of Illinois at Chicago.