Article Summary by Alice Chesterfield and Jordan Harvey Despite much controversy, the functional-organic distinction attempts to distinguish symptoms, signs, and syndromes that can be explained by diagnosable biological changes (‘organic’) from those that cannot (‘functional’). It appears across medicine but has particular relevance in neuropsychiatric settings where it is often central to treatment decisions and […]
Category: Special Issues
Narratives of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Healing Through Music in Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach
Article Summary by Neha Hejaz and Rajni Singh This article is an attempt to acknowledge the clinical uses of fictional narratives of Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) within health care. The purpose of studying fiction lies in exploring the lives of individuals in an imaginative manner, offering a deeper existential understanding of problems, and developing of […]
Personalism and Boosting Organ ResERVOirs: A Consideration of Euthanasia by Removal of Vital Organs in the Canadian Context
Article Summary by Jamie Grunwald Canada’s decriminalisation of assisted death has elicited significant ethical implications for the use of assisted death in healthcare contexts. Euthanasia by removal of vital organs (ERVO) is a theoretical extension of medically assisted death with an increased plausibility of implementation in light of the rapid expansion of assisted death eligibility […]
Hospital Space Interpreted According to Heidegger’s Concepts of Care and Dwelling
Article Summary by Hye Youn Park In today’s era, hospitals have solidified their position as central hubs closely intertwined with human life, overcoming numerous diseases through remarkable progress in science and technology. Despite being the focal point of human existence, discussions about hospital spaces often linger within the therapeutic tool perspective, emphasizing the effectiveness of […]
Redefining Global Cardiac Surgery Through an Intersectionality Lens
Article Summary by Dominique Vervoort, Lina A Elfaki, Maria Servito, Karla Yael Herrera-Morales and Kudzai Kanyepi Around the world, more than six billion people are unable to undergo heart surgery. This is a result of an absence of surgeons and other health workers, insufficient money or health insurance, limited supplies, or a combination of factors. […]
“And Then It Spreads”: Contagion and Disease as Metaphors of Sociomoral Contamination in Charles Burns’ Graphic Novel Black Hole
Article Summary by Arindam Nandi and Avishek Parui This article examines how Charles Burns’ graphic novel Black Hole situates states of contagion and disease as metaphors of social and moral contamination. Set in suburban Seattle in the 1970s, Black Hole depicts the lives of a set of teenagers in the midst of navigating a sexually […]
Prostheses of Disability: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Disabled Body in Postcolonial Arab Fiction
Article Summary by Abir Hamdar What is the relationship between disability and Islamic fundamentalism? To answer this question, this essay explores the representation of disability in postcolonial Arab fiction about Islamic fundamentalism and in particular, the significance of the prosthesis: an artificial device that substitutes for a missing part of the body. As the essay […]
Gender, Race and Class at Work: Enlisting African Health Labour into the Gold Coast Medical Service, 1860–1957
Article Summary by Lucky Tomdi This article is part of an ongoing project that examines the historical roles and experiences of African health workers in Ghana during the late 19th and 20th centuries. It examines how gender, race, and class shaped the participation of Africans in colonial and Christian missionary biomedical services from 1860 to […]
(Post)confessional Mode and Psychological Surveillance in The Crown and Fleabag
Article Summary by Sarah Hagaman Two fictional therapy sessions are at the heart of my article, “(Post)confessional Mode and Psychological Surveillance in The Crown and Fleabag.” In Season 4 of The Crown, Princess Margaret—the Queen’s younger sister—discovers she may suffer from a hereditary mental illness. The second, Season 2 of Fleabag shows a short, bizarre […]
Authority and Medical Expertise: Arthur Conan Doyle in The Idler
Article Summary by Anne Chapman Arthur Conan Doyle’s medical and writing careers intertwined (highlighted most recently by the current BBC programme Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle) and his work has a history of being read in the light of his medical expertise. He wrote at a time when the professionalisation […]