Book Review by Samuel Freeman Carl Erik Fisher, The Urge: Our History of Addiction (New York: Penguin Press, 2022). ISBN 978-0525561446. Carl Erik Fisher’s use of alcohol and drugs nearly ended his burgeoning career when he was a psychiatrist in training. In The Urge: Our History of Addiction, Fisher, a psychiatrist, bioethicist, and addiction specialist […]
Category: Blog
A Commentary on Traumatic Events – Medical Training in the Wake of 2020
Blog by Lisa P. Michelson, M.A., M.Phys., and Sara J. King, B.S. Acknowledgements: Aaron Fox, Quinta Fernandes, Santiago Bejarano Hernandez “You – hold pressure on the thigh wound!” “Peds Surg is on their way!” “Placing a second IV.” “How much Morphine has he gotten?” “Can someone distract him with his bear?” These are the voices […]
We Are Trying to Put the Humanity Back Into Medicine … So, Why Do We Keep Removing It?
By Meagan Brennan The focus on patient-centred care has prompted physicians to consider how to better centre the human experience in healthcare. Most patient-centred initiatives ask, “How can we put the humanity back into our medical practice?” Perhaps a better question is “Why did we remove it at all?” Instead of trying to foster […]
Let’s End Violence Against Girls and Women: International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): Monday, 6 February 2023
Professor Hassan Shehata is the current RCOG Vice President for Global Health. In this blog, he reflects on the RCOG’s role in eradicating Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C), and launches a call for action by healthcare professionals and NGO’s around the world to stop all forms of gender-based violence including FGM. Introduction: about FGM When […]
The Poet Who Conquered Malaria: Medical Humanities and the Public Understanding of Science
Blog by Dr Emilie Taylor-Pirie In the sweltering heat of British India, a doctor was working late one evening in his laboratory. His scalpel glinted with the sweat from his brow as he dissected his 1000th mosquito, gently separating the flesh of the thorax from the abdomen. He was tired, a little feverish, and about […]
Caring Art and Artistic Care
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 […]
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 […]