March 2020 Issue

March 2020 Standard Issue How sociophenomenology of the body problematises the ‘problem-oriented approach’ to growth hormone treatment by Maria Cristina Murano, Jenny Slatman, Kristin Zeiler Graphic illustration of impairment: science fiction, Transmetropolitan and the social model of disability by Richard Gibson Ethics in cross-cultural encounters: a medical concern? by Arild Kjell Aambø Health at the […]

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How Sociophenomenology of the Body Problematises the ‘Problem-Oriented Approach’ to Growth Hormone Treatment

Article Summary by Maria Cristina Murano Idiopathic short stature is a medical diagnosis given to children who have a statistically significant short stature for unknown medical reasons. Biomedical and bioethical debates are ongoing as to whether children with idiopathic short stature should be treated with growth hormone in order to increase their height. This article […]

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‘Master My Demons’: Art Therapy Montage Paintings by Active-Duty Military Service Members with Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-Traumatic Stress

Article Summary by Melissa S. Walker, Marygrace Berberian and Girija Kaimal As part of a four-week intensive outpatient program for traumatic brain injury and associated psychological health conditions to include post-traumatic stress, military service members (SMs) engage in group and individual art therapy treatment sessions led by credentialed art therapists. In the fourth week, SMs […]

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Ferments and the AIDS Virus: Interspecies Counter-Conduct in the History of AIDS

Article Summary by Justin Abraham Linds In the early years of the American AIDS epidemic, numerous AIDS activists and people with AIDS started researching, teaching, and organizing experimental treatment options within committees such as the Alternative and Holistic Treatment Committee and the Treatment Alternatives Program. This paper briefly describes the committees before narrowing in on […]

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Exploring Gendered Leadership Stereotypes in a Shared Leadership Model in Healthcare: A Case Study

by Saam Idelji-Tehrani and Muna Al-Jawad Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, Brighton, UK Our article explores how gender played out in a group of NHS hospital consultants who adopted a shared leadership model in their department. We used comics-based research to analyse and present some of our data. Our final comic is shown […]

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December’s Special Issue on Hearing Impairment and the Medical Humanities

by Bonnie Millar People engage with sound in different ways and it can be fruitful to compare modern and historical ideas of the human experience of sound and hearing, fostering conversations between medicine, science, the arts and humanities. Medicine is more than just the analysis of bones, muscles, and samples, it also encompasses psychological and […]

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December Issue, featuring Hearing and the Medical Humanities

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our December Issue, which includes original research on a variety of medical humanities topics, and three open access articles. In addition the December issue features a Special Section on Hearing and the Medical Humanities, guest edited by Dr. Bonnie Miller, Musculoskeletal Project Manager, NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre MSK Communication Lead, […]

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‘He’s My Mate You See’: A Longitudinal Critical Discourse Analysis of the Therapeutic Role of Companion Animals for People Living with Severe Mental Illnesses

Article Summary by Helen Brooks There is increasing evidence of the supportive role pets play for people with mental health conditions. Pets have been shown to distract people from upsetting symptoms and experiences, offer an important source of comfort and routine, and promote social interaction. This paper aimed to extend our understanding of this therapeutic […]

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What’s in it for the Animals? Symbiotically Considering ‘Therapeutic’ Human-Animal Relations within Spaces and Practices of Care Farming

Article Summary by Richard Gorman Care farming is an emerging form of healthcare that aims to deploy farming practices as a type of therapeutic intervention, with human-animal relations framed as providing important opportunities for human health. The growing body of academic work on care farming links participation in a care farming scheme as having the […]

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Essential(ist) Medicine Promoting Social Explanations for Racial Variation in Biomedical Research

Article Summary by Iliya Gutin When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail—and when all you have is a definition of race rooted in biology and genetics, every racial disparity in health outcomes is attributed to these intrinsic differences. Fortunately, this narrative applies far less to contemporary biomedicine than the […]

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