Blog by Swati Joshi Still Parents is an award-winning exhibition that runs until 4 December 2022 at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. The idea for it was born in the wake of the personal losses of its two curators, Lucy Turner and Imogen Holmes-Roe. In 2019, in collaboration with Manchester’s Sands (Stillbirth and Neo-Natal […]
Category: Blog
The Story of the Wound that Cries Out: Using Narrative to Inform Healthcare Design in Research and Practice
Blog by Kari Nixon “Trauma seems to be much more than a pathology, or the simple illness of a wounded psyche: it is always the story of a wound that cries out, that addresses us in the attempt to tell us of a reality or truth that is not otherwise available.” –Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience […]
Bridge Work: The Behavioural and Social Sciences in Dentistry
Blog by Patricia Neville As a social scientist working in oral health research and dental education, I am regularly frustrated about how closed dentistry is to the behavioural and social sciences. Working as a sociologist in oral health research can be a lonely place. I am treated as an “exotic animal” with “curious” tools and […]
What is an Adverse Event in a Clinical Trial?
Blog by Thomas Milovac Kow and colleagues have recently addressed the lack of quality in reporting adverse events (AEs) in trials of remdesivir, basing their analysis on guidelines recommended by the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT).1 For example, none of the trials defined an AE, and only one trial noted how researchers collected AE […]
The World Enters Our Playroom: Music and Family in the Time of COVID
Blog by Astrid de Oliveira (née Treffry-Goatley) The outside world enters our playroom, the room with the best light and internet connection in the house. The children’s bookshelf becomes the backdrop to countless television interviews, zoom calls and meetings with world leaders. In hard lockdown, which started on 27 March 2020, we suddenly morph into […]
Living with COVID: What We Learned from Patients with Incurable Cancer During Challenging Times
Blog by Hilde M. Buiting, Xiaochang Campmans, Evelien van Alphen, Michel van den Heuvel and Gabe S. Sonke. Although COVID-19 impacted everyday life and destabilized the healthcare sector across the globe,1 few studies have focused on the experiences of patients with incurable cancer (infected or not). Can such patients serve as examples for understanding other […]
Podcasting Builds Disability Culture
With funding from the Disability Visibility Project, disabled podcasters Cheryl Green and Thomas Reid are creating a space for Deaf and disabled podcasters and content creators to find each other and find audiences. The project, currently called POD Access, will host a database of Deaf and disabled podcasters and podcasts relating to deafness or disability, […]
The Rehabilitation of Long Covid Requires Understanding of Not Just the Biomedical Dimensions But All Aspects of Being Human
Blog by Amali U. Lokugamage and Clare Rayner We are both senior doctors affected by multi-system long covid symptoms for almost two years now and have resorted to biomedical, humanities, artistic and complementary methods to support rehabilitation and recovery. We used art and poetry and meditation despite illness. These helped us communicate and make sense […]
Ethnographic Fieldwork Among Pigs and People: What Can We Learn from Previous Xenotransplantations?
Blog by Susanne Lundin In the late 1990s, I visited a farm at a secret location in the UK where I met the offspring of the world-famous Astrid. Astrid herself was staying in another place, hidden from the public eye (as is customary for celebrities). Astrid was not just any mother of several children, but […]
Compassion, Willpower and Social Stigma: A Journey Through the Deadly Second Wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic in India
Blog by Kunchok Dorjee Covid patients are subject to stigma, isolation, and low morale. Elderly citizens, individuals without family support, health disparity populations, and those with coexisting conditions–such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, mental health conditions, refugees, etc.–may be particularly vulnerable. Mitigation measures such as harsh lockdowns and forced isolation have exacerbated the stigma. Inclusion and humanity […]