https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.011
Beyond the Clinic’s Promise: Trauma, Bioethics, and Iatrogenic Harm in Graphic Medicine Memoirs
MEHJEBIN FARSANA
Research Scholar
Research Department of English
MES Asmabi College, P. Vemballur, Kodungallur, Thrissur
Affiliated to the University of Calicut
DR. RESHMI S.
Assistant Professor and Research Supervisor
Research Department of English
MES Asmabi College, P. Vemballur, Kodungallur, Thrissur
Affiliated to the University of Calicut
Abstract: Graphic medicine has emerged as a significant interdisciplinary field that foregrounds the capacity of comics to represent embodied illness, patient perspectives, and the affective dimensions of healthcare. While much scholarship has focused on narratives of chronic illness, disability, and mental health, comparatively little attention has been paid to works that depict iatrogenic harm, which refers to the trauma resulting from medical intervention itself. This paper argues that graphic memoir provides a uniquely effective medium for representing such experiences, as its multimodal form and iconography enables the visualization of affective states, the externalization of shame and hypervigilance, and the structural replication of fragmented traumatic memory.
Drawing on Trauma Theory and Bioethics, the study examines three seminal works: Lighter Than My Shadow (2013) by Katie Green, Rx: A Graphic Memoir (2018) by Rachel Lindsay, and Stitches (2009) by David Small. These texts respectively illuminate therapeutic failure, psychiatric intervention, and pediatric medical error as distinct forms of iatrogenic trauma. Through expressive linework, spatial distortion, allegorical visual systems, and nonlinear sequencing, the authors convey experiences of betrayal, dissociation, and epistemic vulnerability that resist conventional medical or narrative articulation.
Furthermore, read through a bioethical lens, particularly the principles of autonomy, beneficence, and non-maleficence, these narratives reveal how medical systems may produce harm even in the act of care. Their narratives enact forms of “narrative repair,” reclaiming interpretive authority from institutions that often silence or discredit patients. Collectively, these memoirs demonstrate that iatrogenic trauma is not exceptional but a systemic vulnerability within contemporary healthcare, demanding ethical reflection, institutional accountability, and trauma-informed practice.
Keywords: Graphic Medicine, Iatrogenic Harm, Trauma Theory, Bioethics, Medical Humanities, Narrative Agency
Read Full Manuscript PDF