Crafting medical guides to improve clarity and communicate essential treatment information for cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment therapy for brain, digestive system, and head & neck cancers.
Duration
May - Aug 2022
Role
Design Researcher & Visual Designer
Client
University of Chicago Medicine
In collaboration with the University of Chicago Medicine and the Radiation Oncology Institute, I worked alongside another designer to design three clinical guides aimed at reducing patient anxiety and improving communication between doctors and patients during the treatment process. These guides focus on treatments for cancers in the digestive system, head and neck, and brain. The guides were developed to address common concerns and misunderstandings that patients have about radiation therapy, and facilitate better doctor-patient communication.
700
Number of downloads by radiotherapy clinics internationally (as of Aug 2022)
1,050
Number of patients use these guides annually (UChicago Medicine, as of September 2023)
Reviewing the History of Graphic Medicine
To understand treatment terminologies and procedures for various types of cancers, we reviewed a wide range of medical literature, including giveaway pamphlets from cancer treatment clinics, medical journals, exhibitions, and books.
Documenting Treatment Procedures along with Oncologists
As an outcome of our secondary research, we collaborated with oncologists and resident doctors to map out treatment procedures. This 'brain dump' included medical terminologies, treatment stages, types of tests/checks, and the roles and responsibilities of the medical staff.
Contextual inquiries allowed us to step into patients' shoes and gain firsthand experience of how they undergo radiation therapy treatment. This was crucial for creating illustrations and developing empathy to design the clinical guides with the appropriate tone and emotion.
Through structured interviews, we engaged in conversations to understand the roles and responsibilities, clinical practices, medical protocols, and the fears or concerns of both patients and medical staff regarding the treatment process.
We synthesized our research by tagging various pieces of information, which helped us organize and plan content for each of the guides. The frameworks used included:
4A Framework (Activities, Ambitions, Attitudes, Anxieties),
Tumor site (Digestive System, Head and Neck, Brain/CNS, Multi), and
Treatment Stage (Consult, Sim Scan, Planning, Treatment, Post-Treatment).
(click to view in detail)
This helped us extract the most important pieces of information in an orderly manner.
We developed site-specific treatment blueprints for each guide and iterated them over time based on feedback from medical staff. This feedback helped refine the language, illustrations, medical terminologies, and protocols used in the guides.
Through a process of design critiques and testing, we iterated multiple times to design the perfect discussion guides.
"These guides are significant because they provide an additional method for radiation oncologists to communicate with patients regarding their treatment process. I like to believe that this collaboration has helped patients around the globe to better understand radiotherapy as a cancer treatment."
– Dr. Daniel Golden, UChicago Medicine