Palliative Care in the Time of COVID

“As we take stock of masks, gloves, and ventilators, we must also be ready to dig deep into our reserves of patience, communication, and compassion.” Nathan A. Gray, MD

The woman who changed how we die…

When it comes to courageous healthcare heroes, it’s hard to think of anyone quite like Dame Cicely Saunders – nurse, social worker, doctor, and an extraordinary spark in bringing rigorous compassion to medicine… I’m excited to share my comic on the life of Dame Saunders published with Annals of Internal Medicine just in time for […]

Drowning in a Flood of Cancer Debt

I had the honor of taking up a digital pen in the L.A. Times alongside my inspiring colleague Dr. Fumiko Chino (now a Radiation Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) to tell her story of how the “financial toxicity” of cancer treatments brought her own life to the brink of ruin. You can read […]

Dying Words Aren’t What I Imagined

The things people say (and don’t say) at the end never cease to surprise me… Here’s the link to my comic, made for Spiralbound on Medium, about the tremendous privilege of sitting together alongside both the marvel and the messes of dying words.

Good Medicine

Sir William Osler is widely considered the father of modern medical education and created the first residency specialty training program for doctors. He was famous not only for his glorious mustache but for his passion for drawing students out of the classroom and to the bedside of their patients. His influence can be seen throughout […]

Medicine in the Digital Age

Since its first display in 1891, Sir Luke Fildes’ classic painting “The Doctor” has become an icon for the ideals of presence and personal connection in the practice of medicine. Certainly, medical technology has made miraculous strides in the past century, but I sometimes wonder how we measure up against that ideal in our digital […]

Finding Humanity in Medicine’s High-Tech Death Ritual…

Durham, NC – My latest graphic medicine piece was published last week, and I’m grateful to Topic magazine for giving this story a platform. I tried hard to capture the pain and grit of one of the hard decisions that patients and doctors are forced to make in the midst of life-threatening illness. While I believe strongly […]

Flute Music, Existential Distress, and Sloppy Surgeons…

Here are a few recent Palliative Care cartoons from the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management and AAHPM Quarterly! I’m grateful, and still a bit surprised, to have my scatterbrained cartoons featured in respectable publications… Images copyright ©2018 Nathan A. Gray

Burnout

A cartoon salute to the medical folks working this #LaborDay . . . Hope you’re able to feel appreciated for the hard work you do, even when you may feel toasted!! #LaborOnLaborDay #GraphicMedicine

Cruel Carousel: The Grim Grind of “Compassionate” Dialysis

I’m grateful to the AMA Journal of Ethics for giving me a platform to tell the story of ‘Silvio,’ an undocumented immigrant living with kidney failure. You can read the journal article here or follow the gallery below to see the story page by page. While I can’t change what happened to ‘Silvio,’ I hope that with […]