THE WISH | Megan Gerber
© The Wish. Megan Gerber. Mixed-Media: Acrylic, ink and tissue paper on canvas. Spring 2025 Intima
“This mixed-media painting is a painting over an older painting of mine using tissue paper, acrylic paper and ink. This was the first painting I completed after my father died in February 2024 after contracting COVID-19. I was both angry and grief stricken. This painting felt like a breakthrough and a way to move forward as my father would have wanted me to do, to flourish and continue creating.”
Megan Gerber is a primary care physician, professor of medicine and assistant dean of health humanities at Albany Medical College and a candidate in the Columbia University narrative medicine certification of professional achievement program. Her clinical and academic work focuses on improving both health outcomes and the health care experience for those who have experienced trauma. For the last several years, she has worked to find novel ways to integrate narrative medicine into her work. Gerber is an abstract painter whose paintings and mixed-media pieces focus on textural expression of “emotional landscape.” Her visual and written work has appeared in the Journal of General Medicine, Closler.org, Pulse Voices and Intima. She is the editor of the book “Trauma-Informed Healthcare Approaches: A Guide for Primary Care.”