‘To donate or not to donate? that is the question!’: an organ and body donation comic

Abstract

Conversations surrounding end of life and death can be difficult or taboo for some, meaning that matters of organ and body donation are not widely discussed. To Donate or Not to Donate? That is the Question! is a comic developed to raise awareness and challenge common misconceptions about donation by encouraging the publics to engage in informed discussions about the different options available. This case study proposes graphic medicine as an alternative method of presenting donation information to a public audience, and illustrates how the comic medium can communicate body donation information in an accessible and engaging way.

Keywords:

• Graphic medicine
• body donation
• public engagement
• medical art
• comic

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The HTA does not hold information on the number of bodies that have been received by medical schools in the United Kingdom (See https://www.hta.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2014-03-26_FoI_response_body_donation_statistics.pdf)

2 Thinking of the public as an undifferentiated whole is unlikely to help develop any kind of purposeful, responsive and respectful engagement. One commonly used tactic is to replace the term 'public' with 'publics', to try to convey this complexity (Knowles, 2017).