153: MK Czerwiec

Steve chats with MK Czerwiec about her career as the Comic Nurse, what graphic medicine is, and why libraries should have it in their collections.

MK Czerwiec is a Senior Fellow of the George Washington School of Nursing Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement (Washington, DC) and the Artist-in- Residence at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine (Chicago, IL). Her clinical nursing experience is in HIV/AIDS care and hospice care. MK has been making comics under the pseudonym Comic Nurse since 2000. She has an MA in Medical Humanities and Bioethics from Northwestern University, where she teaches a course she designed called “Drawing Medicine” to first and second year medical students. She also co-teaches a cross-curriculum course on Graphic Medicine at the University of Chicago. She has a BSN from Rush University in Chicago and a BA in English from Loyola University Chicago. 

She is the creator of Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 (Penn State University Press, 2017) which was chosen as one of JAMA’s “Best of Graphic Medicine 2017″ and nominated for a 2018 Excellence in Graphic Literature award. MK is a co-author of the Eisner-nominated Graphic Medicine Manifesto (PSU Press, 2014). She is a co-manager of GraphicMedicine.org and host of the Graphic Medicine podcast. MK travels widely to teaching about about Graphic Medicine, with specific focus on comics and end of life. Her next book will be an edited anthology of comics about menopause. She is also contemplating her next graphic memoir, which will be about medical decision making, the history of medicine, and her mother. 

• Comic Nurse
• Graphic Medicine blog
• Graphic Medicine podcast
• Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371
• Graphic Medicine Manifesto

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