Superwoman Syndrome

CEO and Founder of Medikidz Kim Chilman-Blair has created the world’s first series of medical comics which are proving a welcome resource for parents

Any parent can understand the difficulty of attempting to explain a health issue to their child. Often a diagnosis is difficult to comprehend even for an adult and the child is left confused and scared by the medical procedures and treatments that they must undergo.

Dr Kim Chilman-Blair saw this first hand as she was unable to provide children with resources to help educate them about their new diagnoses or medicines - in their language, at their level.

“While I was studying as a medical student, I was helping a young patient who had epilepsy,” Kim explains. “While I was talking to him, I realised that he didn’t understand what epilepsy was, and moreover, there was no information anywhere which could explain the condition in language that he could understand. I saw so many scared children who had a medical condition, but couldn’t grasp what it actually meant. I really believe education is empowerment, so taking away the complex medical terms and making it clear goes a very long way to making a child feel more confident and better equipped to handle whatever condition they may have.”

While studying for a Masters in Entrepreneurship at the University of Otago and working full time as a paediatrician, Kim started writing stories that would eventually become the world's first series of medical information comics for young people. After winning a $20,000 entrepreneurship challenge, she moved over to South West London with her colleague Dr Kate Hersov, to fully establish the company.

“We decided on London and the UK purely for geographical reasons. It is the ideal location for us to create our European and global network. We go back to New Zealand all the time to see friends and family and yes, we do miss it, but we know it’s there when we get home sick homesick!”