We have another great review today, of Lori A Brown’s book “Contested Spaces: Abortion Clinics, Women’s Shelters and Hospitals.” It’s by Sophie Jones of Birkbeck College, University of London, and considers aspects of architecture, landscape & design, and wider ideas about feminism and attitudes to women’s health in the USA. Looks like a fascinating area […]
Category: Book Reviews
“The One-Sex Body on Trial: the Classical and Early Modern Evidence” – a new review by Brandy Schillace
We are thrilled to be able to publish here a wonderful review by Brandy Schillace, of Helen King’s book “The One-Sex Body on Trial: the Early and Modern Evidence.” (Surrey: Ashgate Press 2014.) Thank you so much to Brandy for her contribution to the blog – I will very much look forward to other pieces from her […]
Ayesha Ahmad: Review of ‘Able-Bodied – Scenes from a curious life’ by Professor Leslie Swartz
Having had the privilege to meet with Professor Swartz, I read his most recent book publication, ‘Able-Bodied – Scenes from a curious life’ with the jovial sounds of his uncanny ability to reflect on human nature and experiences in the background. I certainly found Professor Swartz’ presence evident in the somewhat apologetic way […]
Ayesha Ahmad: Introducing ‘The Sublime Object of Psychiatry: Schizophrenia in Clinical and Cultural Theory’ by Dr Angela Woods
‘The Sublime Object of Psychiatry’ studies representations of schizophrenia, and acknowledges a wide range of disciplines, including biological and phenomenological psychiatry, psychoanalysis, critical psychology, anti-psychiatry, and postmodern philosophy. Such an analysis permits a privileged view of the way in which schizophrenia has been framed within different discourses. […]
Ayesha Ahmad: Review of ‘Doing Clinical Ethics’ by Dr Daniel Sokol
Since Hippocrates in early 5 B.C., Medicine has carried an ‘angel on its shoulder’; a reflexive gaze on the skill, and phenomenologies of healing between the doctor and his patient. Ethics is a code, a practice, and a guide amid the terrain of the hands that tend to the body using instruments of medicine’s enterprise. […]
Ayesha Ahmad: “Stories are all we have”- reflecting on ‘An Imperfect Offering’ by James Orbinski
In ‘An Imperfect Offering’, a memoir written by James Orbinski on his travelling tales as a doctor working and bearing witness in some of the world’s most death-ridden and hostile regions, he writes of a man he met in Afghanistan who once said to him: “No scars, no story, no life. Sometimes, the best story […]
James Poskett: Abandoning disease
Imagine you are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Your weight loss, lethargy and occasionally-blurred vision are all finally explained and your treatment, regular injections of insulin, prescribed. A month later you go back to your doctor. They open their clinical handbook, flick through the index and, rather unfortunately, ‘diabetes’ has been omitted from the latest […]
Gawande’s ‘The Checklist Manifesto’ and Jurisevic’s ‘Blood on My Hands’
Atul Gawande has published ‘The Checklist Manifesto’ with Profile Books. Its about his WHO project to develop an 18 point safety checklist for non-cardiac operations. His blend of anecdotes and data makes comparison with building construction and aircraft accident investigation. On a more personal level Craig Jurisevic has published ‘Blood on my Hands’ as an […]
“In the Land of Invisible Women” by Qanta Ahmed
I have recently been reading a memoir by a British lady, of Pakistan origin, who undertakes a position as a medical doctor at a hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The book is beautifully formatted, with a cover decorated in Islamic art and design, with each chapter laid out to chronicle another adventure in Dr Ahmed’s […]
Book review: The Spare Room by Helen Garner
Helen Garner’s The Spare Room (published by Canongate) is an exploration of the emotional and practical turmoil engendered by caring for someone who is grasping at straws to evade the terminal truth of their illness. The narrative probes a friendship between two feisty women when it is taken to new levels of intensity by […]