What's Wrong?: Personal Histories of Chronic Pain and Bad Medicine

A gorgeously illustrated critique of how the American healthcare system fails women, people of color, and nonbinary individuals--perfect for fans of Invisible Women What's Wrong? is author, illustrator, and scientific researcher Erin Williams's graphic exploration of how the American healthcare system has failed both her and the rest of us. Focusing on poignant, raw, and complex firsthand accounts from four patients, plus Williams' own personal story, this book addresses identifiable illnesses such as bladder cancer, alcoholism, postpartum depression, abuse, and endometriosis. More broadly, it peels back the layers on the invisible illnesses that come from trauma, often perpetuated by the broken healthcare system. Western medicine, which is intended to cure illness and pain, often causes more loss, abuse, and suffering, especially for those Americans who do not fit within the narrow definition of "normal," meaning white, male, and heterosexual. The book explores the many ways in which those receiving medical treatments are often overlooked, unseen, and doubted by their doctors due to their race, gender, and unconventional social circumstances. Despite this, What's Wrong? remains a beautiful celebration of and declaration by those who were able to find various ways of healing and receiving care, ways where they were not just viewed as collections of parts to be taken apart and reassembled but as people.