Ideas change everything

How visual storytelling creates better health care

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Sam Hester |

TEDxYYC

• June 2021

Comics creator Sam Hester is part of a growing movement within health care: graphic medicine. In short, literally drawing attention to a patient's needs and goals with pictures to foster better and more accessible caretaking. Hester shares how illustrating small details of her mother's medical story as she struggled with mysterious symptoms alongside her Parkinson's and dementia led to more empathy, understanding, communication and peace of mind.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Comics creator Sam Hester is part of a growing movement within health care: graphic medicine. In short, literally drawing attention to a patient's needs and goals with pictures to foster better and more accessible caretaking. Hester shares how illustrating small details of her mother's medical story as she struggled with mysterious symptoms alongside her Parkinson's and dementia led to more empathy, understanding, communication and peace of mind.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxYYC, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.

Learn more about the graphic medicine movement.

About the speaker

Graphic recorder

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A leader in the emerging field of graphic recording, Sam Hester creates visual stories. Her work draws upon deep listening skills, a unique graphic style, a passion for community-building … and a lot of markers.

About TEDx

TEDx was created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." It supports independent organizers who want to create a TED-like event in their own community.

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This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxYYC, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.

Learn more about the graphic medicine movement.