Stories of the Futures You Didn’t See Coming: Scenario Planning, Healthcare, and the Humanities

Blog by Matt Finch Though it’s just a trick of the calendar, as the new year begins our thoughts inevitably turn to the future. Yet we cannot gather data from events that haven’t happened yet, and forecasts drawing on precedent can flounder when situations are unstable. Under so-called “TUNA” conditions of turbulence, uncertainty, novelty, and […]

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You Are Special: The Global Importance of Identifying the Needs of Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer

Blog by Hilde M. Buiting, Ikenna D. Ebuenyi, Phyllis N. Butow and Gabe S. Sonke Ninety-Two Participants from Twenty-Seven Countries in One Meeting In November 2019, ninety-two healthcare professionals, patients and patient advocates from twenty-seven countries from all over the world attended a multidisciplinary workshop to discuss gaps in care and support for patients with […]

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Forensic Rhetoric: COVID-19 and the Boundaries of Healthcare Evidence

Article Summary by David Houston Jones The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the role of medical evidence in public health presentations. This article investigates the rhetoric of those presentations, from ‘podium’ presentations such as press conferences to online forums and visualisations of the virus. In all of these, rhetorical forms arise from the […]

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Solidarity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from a Nine-Country Interview Study in Europe

Article Summary by Katharina Kieslich, Amelia Fiske, Marie Gaille, Ilaria Galasso, Susi Geiger, Nora Hangel, Ruth Horn, Marjolein Lanzing, Sébastien Libert, Elisa Lievevrouw, Federica Lucivero, Luca Marelli, Barbara Prainsack, Franziska Schönweitz, Tamar Sharon, Wanda Spahl, Ine Van Hoyweghen and Bettina M. Zimmermann Solidarity is a term that many people are familiar with, but most would […]

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Listening, learning, caring: exploring assemblages of, ethics of and pathways to care for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)

Article Summary by Andrea LaMarre, Kathryn McGuigan and Melinda Lewthwaite What does care mean, in the context of treatment for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)? In this paper, we explored that question, engaging with stories shared with us by 14 caregivers of individuals with ARFID. We were specifically interested in how participants described their […]

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Students Reflect on a Poetry Reading and Craft Seminar within a Narrative Medicine Curriculum

Reflection by Lucas Axiotakis M.D., Kensington Cochran, Jude Okonkwo, W. Conor Rork and Owen Lewis, M.D. Within the medical curriculum at the Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, there is a well-articulated program of Narrative Medicine Training from the first through final semesters (Charon et al, 1995, 2016; Devlin et al, 2015; Cunningham et […]

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UK Media Responses to HIV through the Lens of COVID-19: A Study of Multidirectional Memory

Article Summary by Fran Pheasant-Kelly Covid-19 affected, and continues to affect us all to some degree. For those who were around in the 1980s, there are aspects of the virus that chillingly recall the initial terrors of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Such connections are evident in news media coverage of Covid-19 – this article examines those […]

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Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowship

Announcement from the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge To me CRASSH has been a unique platform and probably a once-in-a-life opportunity to explore transdisciplinary research. – Dr Ronita Bardhan, Charles Wallace India Trust Fellow (2018-19)   Applications for the 2024 – 2025 Fellowship are now open. […]

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The Medicalisation of Exhaustion: Kruschen Salts in Early Twentieth-Century Southern Africa

Article Summary by Perseverence Madhuku   How did exhaustion in British colonies become a medical problem to be fixed, remedied, and eradicated? In the first half of the twentieth century, Kruschen salts, a laxative and diuretic tonic, circulated in Britain and its colonies. It was advertised as a cure for a range of diseases and […]

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Cristina Mejia Visperas, Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory

Announcement from the Levan Institute for the Humanities Upcoming Levan Book Chat Thursday, December 7 | 12:00 PM | Virtual Cristina Mejia Visperas is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California. She will be joined in conversation by Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu (NYU) and Anthony Hatch (Wesleyan University), moderated by Nayan Shah […]

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