Didactics is a medical humanities publication that aims to elevate the voices of people who have traditionally been marginalized or minoritized in healthcare spaces. Our roots are in the disability justice movement, but our identities are intersectional and our struggles are interconnected as we work towards our own liberation and the promotion of health equity and justice. Many of us are healthcare providers ourselves — and we hope to promote the visibility and inclusion of people with disabilities and other marginalized peoples in the healthcare space. Our message to our community is that our perspectives are important in moving the needle for health equity and social justice.
Started as an initiative within Stanford Medicine’s disability community, we hope to serve as a place for all people from under-celebrated communities in medicine to make their voices heard.
Currently, we publish annually. Calls for submissions are released in fall, and submissions close in spring or early summer. New editions are published in fall.
ABOUT DIDACTICS
Our name is a reference to the teaching sessions that people in medicine go to during their training, called didactics sessions. It’s also poking fun at the work that marginalized people have to do throughout our work in medicine, and throughout our lives: telling our stories over and over — to explain ourselves, to advocate, to ensure others see us as fully human. Our name is meant to be a bit serious — we hope that we can all learn something from the stories and perspectives shared — but also a bit tongue-in-cheek: We figured that if people were going to keep making us teach them about our experiences, we might as well offer some didactics sessions.
What’s in a name?
WhEre’d you get your art?
Unless otherwise noted, all images on our website come from two sources: 1) The public domain — sourced largely from the Smithsonian, the Public Domain Review, the Library of Congress, and others. 2) Didactics editor Lillie Reed creates some website art and the art used to represent artists’ work using AI technology called Midjourney. To see all of this AI art, as well as additional AI art that we considered for our pieces, click here.
What makes Didactics different?
We aim to create a supportive community of writers, artists and creators — we hope to build each other up and become better artists together. For every submission to Didactics, we will provide writers and artists with at least 2 unique sources of detailed feedback. Feedback is provided with the knowledge and respect towards the artist’s autonomy and ownership of their work: We hope our feedback will help you think about your piece in new ways, and improve your craft overall, but ultimately, it is your decision whether to incorporate feedback and doing so (or not) will not affect our decision to publish your piece. We also do not require exclusive submissions or publishing, and are happy to give feedback on pieces that eventually end up with other publications. Our goal and hope is that your voice is heard — regardless of if we are the ones amplifying it! We aim to create a creative space that is safe, supportive and helpful to your growth, and to help you build your creative community.
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