In “Before the doctor sees it: Test results in the era of instant access,” Josh Neufeld uses comics journalism to highlight certain provisions in the 21st Century Cures Act. The comic draws on the findings of several academic research articles, along with additional sources — including interviews with researchers Bryan Steitz, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University, and Liz Salmi, the communications and patient initiatives director at OpenNotes. Steitz and Salmi are characters in the nonfiction comic, which discusses the implications of a rule that lets patients receive their medical test results as soon as they’re ready — often before their physicians have a chance to review them. This piece adds to the growing field of graphic medicine, which uses comics as a tool to tell true stories about health care experiences, as well as to distill and discuss complex medical topics. Neufeld is the creator of several health care related comics, including “Vaccinated at the Ball: A True Story about Trusted Messengers,” which won the 2023 GMIC Award for Excellence in Graphic Medicine, Short Form, from the Graphic Medicine International Collective. This story was first published in The Journalist’s Resource
