Muna Al-Jawad

Muna Al-Jawad is a Senior Lecturer in Medical Education at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) and a practicing consultant geriatrician in Brighton. She works within multidisciplinary teams caring for older people in hospital settings while simultaneously contributing to medical education through innovative teaching and research approaches. Her roles include Lead for Curriculum Development for the BMBS course, Lead for Inclusive Practice Partners, and Lead for the TIME course for teachers on the BMBS course.

Dr. Al-Jawad's research program centers on comics-based research and creative methodologies within the healthcare humanities. She explores practitioner and student experience, identity formation, and power relations in medical education through visual storytelling techniques. As part of the University of Brighton Centre for Arts and Wellbeing, she has established herself as a key figure in the graphic medicine community, having co-hosted the International Graphic Medicine Conference in Brighton in both 2013 and 2019. Her work bridges clinical practice and academic inquiry through her superhero alter-ego 'Old Person Whisperer,' developed during her Masters in clinical education in 2010.

Her scholarly output demonstrates a clear trajectory toward using visual narratives as research tools and teaching methods. The publications reveal growing sophistication in applying comics methodology across multiple domains including dementia care, medical education equity, leadership studies, and clinical communication. Her work consistently connects creative expression with practical healthcare applications, particularly in geriatric medicine and medical education reform.

Muna Al-Jawad actively supervises research across all academic levels from undergraduate Independent Research Projects to MD theses. She leads the personal and professional development module spanning the entire five-year BMBS course and co-designed the F0-Preparation for Foundation Programme in year 5. Her supervision of Abi Foreshew's 2022 work on class elitism in medical education exemplifies her commitment to addressing systemic issues in medical training through intersectional approaches.

As a core member of the graphic medicine community, Dr. Al-Jawad contributes to advancing creative methodologies in healthcare through her WordPress blog 'oldpersonwhisperer' and ongoing participation in international conferences. Her thesis 'comics-based-practitioner-research-in-the-healthcare-humanities' is available in the University of Brighton Repository, representing a significant contribution to the field.