When she is not practicing medicine or spending time with her children, Grace Farris, MD, is drawing – illustrating complex issues like motherhood and her journey into medicine – for graphic novels.
In 2018, the Austin native decided to illustrate a complex medical case she encountered at the New York hospital where she worked. From there, she began to draw more personal cartoons.
“I didn’t realize that I had this burning desire to make comics until it just began. All of a sudden, I was off to the races,” said Dr. Farris recently in conversation with TMA Immediate Past President Jayesh “Jay” Shah, MD, on his podcast, Let Doctors Be Doctors.
Working in a hospital offers an endless supply of material – including a sign outside a “wet tissues” lab at Dell Seton Medical Center that still makes her chuckle.
“There’s always interesting stuff going on,” the hospitalist and internist told Dr. Shah. “The human experience is very compelling. In hospital medicine, you see a really wide array of people and interesting backgrounds.”
Now teaching at The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School, Dr. Farris’ “aha!” moment about the form itself came during rounds, when she realized there was often a significant gap between what clinicians openly expressed and what they actually thought. In the many high-pressure situations that arise in health care, she observed, conversations often reveal only a small fraction of the concerns, emotions, and insights beneath the surface. A speech bubble and a thought bubble side by side, she realized, could capture both.
Comics, she added, do something prose cannot.
“This is an art form usually thought of as lowbrow, so it’s a little less threatening or overwhelming than reading an essay or a dense textbook,” she said. “It also has the opportunity to show emotions and some of the surreal aspects of medicine.”
Books, blog, and a calendar
Dr. Farris has published three books: Mom Milestones, More than a Million, and See One, Do One, Teach One, which was published in March. The new book, written for established and aspiring physicians alike, illustrates her life in medical school and residency.
Revisiting that period required more reflection than she expected. “I wanted to make something vulnerable that didn’t shy away from the more oppressive or disturbing parts of medical training, because you have to be honest that there are some things you’re just not prepared for,” she said.
Mom Milestones takes a lighter tone, using humor to reflect on the challenges of early motherhood. The book is intended to help new mothers feel less isolated and provide some levity during a demanding period – making it an accessible gift for sleep-deprived new moms who may not have the energy for more intensive reading but can still benefit from a laugh.
Beyond books, she draws a weekly motherhood column for the blog Cup of Jo, writes the “Dr. Mom” column for the Annals of Internal Medicine, and produces a 17-month family wall calendar built for moms juggling up to five schedules. Her work has been exhibited in the U.S., Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Austria.
Drawing through the COVID-19 surge
Dr. Farris studied medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, completed her residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and was a bioethics fellow at Harvard Medical School. She later led the division of hospital medicine at Mount Sinai West Hospital in New York through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was there from March 2020 to June 2020 – one of the most intense times in medicine,” she said. “It was very scary for a lot of people, and during that time I found drawing and reflecting to be really useful.”
In a 2020 New York Times essay, Dr. Farris wrote about sending her two young sons to their grandmother’s home in Connecticut as the virus crested in New York, FaceTiming them between shifts, and caring for patients sealed in isolation rooms. What had been a planned two-week separation stretched into months – a personal cost she rendered in the same spare, honest voice that animates her comics.
At Dell Med, Dr. Farris leads sessions on illustrating comics and contributes to Harvard Medical School’s Media and Medicine certificate course. One of her former students has since published graphic medicine work in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Her advice to students and physicians is to explore their creative side – be it music, art, or running a marathon – but to give themselves grace.
“Maybe today’s the day you want to draw or embroider or sing or practice the cello – and maybe today is not that day,” Dr. Farris said. “A friend compares it to systole and diastole: you need periods of diastole so that things can function.”