Blog by Luis de Miranda We think we know what physical health and psychological health are, but what is philosophical health and why should it matter? The phrase “physical health” is nowadays considered self-evident. However, it became part of modern discourse only in the nineteenth century, along the publication of manuals such as Health Made […]
Category: Blog
NHS in Critical Condition
Blog by Pam Kleinot Former journalist and psychotherapist, and producer of ‘Under the Knife’ (Directed by Susan Steinberg, UK 2019). I was inspired to produce ‘Under the Knife’ by my father, a doctor who worked at the largest state hospital in Southern Africa. He always told me how wonderful the NHS was. It is one […]
What a Year of Pandemic Isolation Taught Me About My Transition
by Riley Black Hormone replacement therapy is a slow form of magic. Very little physical exertion is needed – in my case, little more than twisting open a prescription bottle – but patience is a virtue you learn if you don’t already have it at the start. From the time I took my first doses […]
Noah Webster, Yellow Fever, and the First U.S. Medical Journal
Blog by Richard Kahn Yellow Jack, Yellow Plague, Bronze John – these words struck terror in the citizens of a newly formed republic. Yellow fever in the 1790s was a “disease of unknown cause, curious almost haphazard spread, short duration, and often a high fatality rate. It died out soon after a frost and did […]
Prioritizing Justice in the U.S. Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Blog by Sarah E. Rowan, Michelle Haas, Lilia Cervantes, Kellie Hawkins, Lilian Barahona Vargas, David Duarte-Corado, Alonzo Ryan and Carlos Franco-Paredes Days ago, a clinician in Denver looked with anger at a patient who laid dying in the ICU. “Why didn’t she access care earlier? There are resources available and now she’s dying!” The patient […]
The Concept of ‘Illness Without Disease’ Impedes Understanding of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Response to Sharpe and Greco
Article Summary by Steven Lubet and David Tuller Today we present the very last of MH essays on CFS. The medical condition known as “chronic fatigue syndrome” has often been presumed to be primarily caused by psychological and behavioural factors, and therefore “reversible” by cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or graded exercise therapy (GET). In 2015, […]
The Value of Evaluation: Differential Attainment Initiatives for BAME Trainees
Blog by Sharon Yip Talk of access to public institutions such as healthcare has been amplified in recent months, due to the Black Lives Matter movement. However, less discussion has been focussed on internal access for staff members working within medicine. Many initiatives aim to improve access to medical education and reduce differential attainment for […]
Women, the State and Film Activism
Film Festival Announcement by Khalid Ali The 25th Human Rights Watch Film Festival, UK Digital Edition, Barbican Cinema On Demand, 18–26 March 2021, https://ff.hrw.org/london Reproductive rights and the right to family, survivors of rape and access to healthcare are the focus of several documentaries in the 25th edition of Human Rights Watch Film Festival taking place from 18-26 March, presented exclusively on the […]
Trauma–Aware Care
Blog by Lily Kim While chairing Holocaust Education Week (UJA Federation) and leading Equity for the Canadian Disability Studies Association (CDSA), I recognized the need to reconcile diverse intersectional perspectives in Canada. The current situation is widely viewed as a healthcare crisis brought about by the COVID-19 virus. However, the pandemic has revealed the existential […]
Crisis
Blog by D. Brendan Johnson Medicine is at home among crises. Hippocrates, or one of his disciples, in the Corpus Hippocraticum was one of the first to conceptualize a crisis as a medical reality, and it was a concept upon which Galen would build and thereby preserve for 1500 years. For these classical physicians, the […]