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ORCID

Kadir Alp Özler: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0201-1905

Abstract

Health education is practiced in patient encounters via verbal communication and educational pamphlets. However, these techniques are faulty and do not provide true patient comprehension of their conditions and treatments reform is necessary to prevent the mortality and hospitalization rates that are linked to poor health literacy. Visual aids and metaphors are individually known to be powerful educational tools. A student organization at Stony Brook University, Artists in Medicine, has sought to synergize these tools to create visual metaphors artwork that links everyday concepts to patient illnesses to facilitate comprehension of this information. For example, one project “Aortic Dissections” depicts the aorta as a muti-walled garden hose. Usage over time leads crack development in the wall (akin to loss of integrity of vascular layers with aging), accumulating fluid between the walls of the hose. Eventually, this hose bursts, like an aortic dissection rupturing and leading to patient mortality. Rather than merely showing a cardiac schematic to patients to explain the pathophysiology of aortic dissections, utilizing commonplace concepts like garden hoses to create metaphors of biological processes will help patients truly comprehend their medical diseases and treatments. The goal of this initiative is to introduce the concept of creating ready-made visual metaphors to be used by healthcare providers during patient encounters so that patients can achieve active roles in their healthcare after better understanding their symptoms and diagnoses. To achieve this goal, we review the status of health literacy education and propose reforms in the form of visual metaphors.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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