Winthrop students, 2 teens and a lab rat help fight SC health issues

Middle school students Vanessa and Brian walk into biology class one sunny morning to find they’re in for a busy day.

Their teacher is walking them through the basics of germs, antibodies and how to ward off infections.

Vanessa leaves class with plenty of knowledge: “Make sure to wash your hands before you eat,” and “Take antibiotics exactly as directed.” Brian is initially less concerned.

“Don’t worry, they’re probably just trying to scare us!” he says.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” says Rx, a small, white lab rat who clutches onto Brian’s back. “Infections can spread very quickly, you know!”

That advice soon becomes critical for Brian, who suffers a nasty scrape during soccer practice.

What happens next is the topic of “Superbug Is My Name, Resistance Is My Game,” one of three comic books Winthrop University biology students helped bring to life this spring. The students tackled contemporary health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, asthma and superbugs through interactive comic books that they hope middle school-age children can appreciate and learn from.

Karen Zelaya, a Winthrop student who worked on the asthma comic, said she believes the books will help kids see past the stigma of mental or physical health issues.

“Before I was diabetic, I didn’t have much knowledge of it,” she said. “I just thought it was if you’re overweight, you eat too much sugar, you get it. But when you’re diabetic, you have to learn everything about it. I think it’ll knock out some of the bullying.”

Each of the three comic books has the same main characters. They are Vanessa, a cool kid with ambitions of going into health care; Brian, a geeky student with tape on his glasses; and Rx, a lab rat who offers advice to Vanessa and Brian.

The project was part of the students’ biology course.

The Winthrop biology department, in partnership with the South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium (AHEC) and the National Library of Medicine, introduced the idea as part of the “Bench to Bedside: Introduction to Health Professions” series.

High-schoolers in the S.C. Lowcountry have worked with the program to create their own comic books on different topics over the past two years. This is one of the first attempts to replicate the efforts at the collegiate level.

The focus is to help promote health information literacy, said Winthrop adjunct professor Angelica Christie. The students will take part in research on a selected topic, interview experts on the issue and then put together a storyboard of the final vision.

“It’s not just a one-and-done thing,” said biology chair Dwight Dimaculangan. “It’s a developmental process to help introduce the students to opportunities and develop skills.”

The Winthrop comic books will be made available to area middle schools and possibly doctors’ offices.

This story was originally published April 12, 2017 at 4:12 PM with the headline "Winthrop students, 2 teens and a lab rat help fight SC health issues."