Beyond Do No Harm:
Stories From Medical Providers Interrupting Criminalization
At the Beyond Do No Harm Network, we know health care workers are resisting criminalization of people seeking care every day. As we fight for structural change, we want to highlight the actions individual medical providers are already taking to interrupt criminalization in the context of care, in the hopes of inspiring others to do the same. Through our storytelling media project, with the help of storytellers and movement artists we are gathering and amplifying these stories in creative and digestible ways that both increase awareness of the harmful impacts of criminalization within the medical system, and invite people to take action at multiple levels.
We hope these enlivening, inspiring examples of health care and public health workers and collectives resisting carceral and criminalizing approaches to care provision inspires you to action to interrupt criminalization!
Sound designer and audio mixer: Joe Namy
Audio recordist, editor, and consulting producer: ill Weaver for Emergence Media
Rural EMT Worker
Anonymous
A rural EMT worker handles a rapidly escalating situation between a patient and medics, centering patient care and cultural competency.
Do you have a story to share that we can collaborate with you to bring to life through animation, a video, short form audio story, zine, or any other kind of media? Fill out our interest form here!
Transcript here.
About the artist: Kruttika Susarla is an illustrator and cartoonist from Andhra Pradesh, India. Her practice ranges from making comics about dogs, crows, and leeches to side hustling in the gig economy to making picture books and designing books and toolkits for community-based organisations and advocacy groups.
Dr. Jamila Perritt
Medical Doctor
A medical doctor fights for an incarcerated patient to get an abortion, through multiple stages of approval and bureaucracy.
Transcript here.
About the artist: San Pham (she/her/hers) is a writer, artist, and teacher from Ann Arbor, MI. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and received her M.F.A. at Emerson College in Boston, where she now resides. She has received multiple Hopwood Awards, an Emerson Graduate Award, and was a finalist for The Pinch Page Prize. She has writing publications in The Pinch, Isele Magazine, and the Crab Creek Review, as well as upcoming art publications in Hayden’s Ferry Review and GRLSQUASH. She is currently working on a novel in progress about ghosts that haunt a family affected by the trauma of the Vietnam War. She loves the sun.
Ana Delgado, CNM, MS
Nurse Midwife
A nurse midwife helps a patient navigate family court and Child Protective Services so the patient can keep her child.
Transcript here.
About the artist: rommy torrico is a queer, trans, formerly undocumented chilean migrant artist. They have been creating images of liberation for over a decade and really love the work they do.
We can’t wait to continue this project through 2024 - and would love your help in making sure that we can continue to pay our artists, storytellers, sound editors, and everyone else involved in this project. If you’d like to contribute, you can do so by heading to our Paypal donation link and writing "Beyond Do No Harm" in the "add a note to your donation" field.
Medical Student
Norman Archer
A medical student discusses the heavy police presence at his teaching hospital, and how to handle escalated situations without cops.
Transcript here.
About the artist: Hoai An Pham (she/her/hers) is an organizer from Ann Arbor, MI, where she was born and raised as a first generation Vietnamese American. As a disabled abolitionist, she has worked in movements like Free Ashley Now and Tashiena’s Freedom Team—around immigration, labor, climate, prisons, and racial justice, with the goal of building long-term, welcoming community. Currently, she is based in Boston, where she is studying public health.
Medical Doctor & Transgender Patient
Dr. Laura & Sean
A medical doctor talks with her transgender patient about navigating the medical system, and what medical providers can do to support transgender people.
Transcript here.
About the artist: Amir Khadar (They/Them) is a Sierra Leonean-American visual artist, designer, and educator originally from Minneapolis. Their artwork is intentionally positioned in social movement spaces, where it is central in creating visual language for liberatory initiatives and agendas around racial, gender, and climate justice. Amir's illustrations and movement artwork are grounded through art's ability to imagine alternate worlds and make liberation tangible. They have collaborated extensively with Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Parenting for liberation, Wakanda Dream Lab, Forward Together, and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice on projects that fulfill this vision.