(Vienna, 04 March 2022) In the MedUni Vienna exhibition series "Art - Action - Attitude" the current focus is on "Borders". This depicts challenging situations in everyday medical practice in the form of Medical Comics. The exhibition is on display in the MedUni Vienna Lecture Center in Vienna General Hospital until 30 June 2022 and admission is free. Opening times and access information can be found at: www.meduniwien.ac.at/medical-comics.
After "Bodies", the second theme to be tackled in the three-year "Art - Action - Attitude" project is "Borders". Next year, the focus will be on the aspect of "Pain". The exhibition series is directly related to MedUni Vienna's general aim of promoting and highlighting "Medical Humanities", an interdisciplinary field at the interface between medicine, humanities, cultural and social sciences, within the entire university sector. There are many different manifestations of "Borders" in medicine: for example, the stress limits of patients, caregivers and medical staff, the limits of therapy or even the borders between life and death. In the current exhibition, they are visualised through the medium of medical comics. Interactive stations offer visitors an opportunity for active participation and reflection.
Art form for interaction and education
Medical comics have become an established art form over the past 20 years. They are now an important resource in the interaction between doctors and patients, as well as in the training of medical staff. They are not intended to be humorous. "Rather, the value of medical comics lies in the fact that they make challenging everyday clinical situations easier to grasp and communicate," point out the initiators of the exhibition, Eva Katharina Masel (Department of Medicine I at MedUni Vienna and University Hospital Vienna) and Andrea Praschinger (MedUni Vienna Teaching Center).
Medical comics serve to illustrate the different viewpoints of patients, relatives and medical staff: "This enables people to see things from a different perspective. It's easier to empathise with the other person, because the visual language is better at conveying emotion," explains Eva Katharina Masel. And last but not least, medical comics are also good for presenting cross-cultural and diverse points of view.
Exhibition: Medical Comics "Borders":
The free exhibition will run until 30 June 2022. It will be displayed in MedUni Vienna Lecture Center in Vienna General Hospital (Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Level 8) and includes works by Austrian and international artists. Opening times and access information can be found at: www.meduniwien.ac.at/medical-comics.
.