Cartoonist Lynn Johnston Helps Med Students Thank Their Patients

By: E&P Staff ?For Better or For Worse? creator Lynn Johnston has created a cartoon that will appear on thank-you cards to Canadian patients who allow med students to practice their clinical skills on them.

McMaster medical school student Tiffaney Krushel wanted to come up with a nice way to thank her patients. After getting the go-ahead to coordinate the project, the school contacted Johnston -- who in the late 1960s worked for McMaster as an anatomical illustrator.

Johnston, who was tickled to be contacted by the school, told the Hamilton Spectator, "It was a really nice compliment. You tend to think that people have forgotten you, but then you're just warmed all over to know you still belong."

The syndicated cartoonist completed five different sketches of students wearing the school?s jackets, and Krushel and her colleagues selected their favorite. The interior of the card carries a quotation from famed physician Sir William Osler that reads, "We are taught that medicine is learned by the bedside, not in the classroom. Thank you for being a teacher."

Johnston told the Spectator that the five years she spent as an illustrator at the medical school were one of the "highlights" of her life: "I loved it. In my next life, I want to go into medicine -- and play the piano.?