Comics at the bedside of healthcare: a unique day of exchange at Montpellier's Faculty of Medicine

[Press release] - Published on June 2, 2025 in Art & Culture, Press room

On Friday June 13, 2025, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montpellier will welcome three comic strip authors: Alice Baguet, Olivia Hagimont and Matthieu Blanchin for a day of meetings, workshops and discussions open to students and the general public. Organized in partnership with the Service commun de documentation, this event is part of an innovative educational project integrating comics into medical training.

An event to rethink healthcare through ^9th art

Since 2023, Montpellier's Faculty of Medicine has been developing an innovative teaching program based around comics, with over 250 works available in the BUs of Nîmes and Montpellier. By recounting their own care journeys, the three guest authors give a strong, sensitive voice to the patient experience. Their stories, combining intimacy, reflection and commitment, provide an in-depth look at the human, ethical and social dimensions of the care-giver-patient relationship.

Through this event, students, teachers and the general public are invited to explore the place of narrative and testimony in healthcare practices, and to discover how comics are becoming a teaching tool in their own right in the healthcare professions.

Highlights and program

All day long :

• Comic book fair and book signings: open meetings with authors, students and health teachers.
• Stalls: university libraries, student associations, " En traits libres " bookshop (present all day for sales and book signings).
• Exchange workshops (for students only): discussions on the authors' comics, led by faculty members, on the themes of care, the care-giver-cared-for relationship, and bodily experience.

Closing highlight :

• 5:30 pm - Round table discussion for the general public in the anatomy amphitheatre:

What does it mean to be a caregiver? Being a patient? What place does experience have in the teaching of care?
A cross-disciplinary debate between guest authors and teachers, to explore the role of comics in narrative medicine and in humanizing medical practices.

This event is supported by the Art & Culture department of the UM Campus Life Division, the SCD, the DUMG, the UM Faculty of Medicine and student health associations in Montpellier and Nîmes.