What is a hiatal hernia?
10 Things I've Leaned about Visual Communication: 1. People like active learning
Happy Health Literacy month! October is month devoted to make health information easier to understand. I’ve had the chance to attend some really great talks on this topic this month. The Health Literacy community is so passionate and purposeful and have learned a lot from them.
Next month, I’m giving a talk about health literacy and medical illustration from my perspective as a physician. It’s the stuff I’ve learned over the years, drawing simplified medical pictures for my patients. It’s based on my personal experience—what works and what doesn’t. When I went to medical school 20+ years ago, I remember many lectures on the Krebs cycle (the biochemical process that turns oxygen into energy). But, I don’t remember one single lecture about patient communication, something I do on a day-to-day basis.
For my talk, I’ve come up with a list of ‘10 Things I’ve Learned About Visual Communication.’ Over the next year, I will share my list and how I’ve incorporated it with my medical illustration work.
Here’s number 1 on my list: People like active learning.
Do you remember those fun educational games we played as a child? My family had a subscription to ‘Highlights’ magazine. I still remember the excitement of opening the mailbox to see that it had arrived. There was one game that I especially liked, ‘Can you spot the difference?’
This game was so fun. Why can’t we make all learning this fun, especially learning about health? So, I started incorporating this concept with my illustrations. Here’s an example I use to explain ‘hiatal hernia” (page 44 from my Diagnosketch book).
I ask my patients, can you spot the difference? And they get it in just a few seconds. Now, a general hernia (the type that bulges out on your body) can be difficult to explain to patients. A hiatal hernia can be even more difficult because it doesn’t bulge out on your body. Sometimes, I find a hiatal hernia on a chest x-ray or a Chest CT scan when a patient comes to the ER for a burning sensation in their chest. It’s when the upper part of the stomach bulges through the diaphragm, into the chest. It disrupts the sphincter that normally keeps acid in your stomach. Acid travels up into your esophagus and causes a burning sensation in your chest.
In medicine, there is a method of patient communication called the ‘Teach Back’ method. It’s when you explain something to a patient and then ask them to ‘teach’ it back to you. I’ve tried to use this method. It just doesn’t feel right. It feels like I am putting a patient on the spot and quizzing them. So, instead, I use this method. I ask patients to look at the picture and ask them to 'spot the difference.’ It's more fun and engaging and patients seem to like it. And, it involves pictures, which is always a plus (yay!).
Here’s another example of using this active learning technique in medical illustration. This is from a recent project I did for Children’s Health in Texas. Their dedicated clinicians were looking for simplified visuals for better bedside patient education for their patients. Can you spot the difference?
Thanks for reading this far. I hope that you enjoyed this post. Just a quick update: I’m going to change the timing of these posts to the first Saturday of the month, instead of the 1st of each month. Just to keep it consistent. Hope to see you next month, on December 2nd!
Amazing work Sapana!
This is genius! I love the connection to Highlights magazine, & how you're thinking outside the box to help patients understand. Seems super effective.