by Victoria Hume For the last few years I’ve been writing music about delirium – a state often induced by being in hospital and which can be characterised by paranoia, delusion and hallucination. It is immensely common, with a documented prevalence of around 20% in ‘normal’ care[1][2] rising to 87% peak incidence in intensive care.[3][4] […]
Category: Special Issues
Reflections on a Field Across Time and Space: The Emergent Medical and Health Humanities in South Africa
by Victoria Hume and Megan Wainwright In this podcast co-authors Victoria Hume and Megan Wainwright introduce themselves and their article. Both have been involved with medical humanities and related fields in the UK and moved to South Africa in 2014 where they became members of what would eventually become the emergent Medical and Health Humanities […]
Critical Orientations for Humanising Health Sciences Education in South Africa
by Berna Gerber, Michelle Pentecost, Megan Wainwright and Thomas Cousins In this article the authors argue that the curricula of health professions degree programmes in South Africa should be ‘humanised’ and ‘decolonised’. Curricular integration is used as the guiding framework. With the term integration we are referring to education that is based on a single […]
A Reflection on the Past, Present and Future of Critical Health and Medical Humanities in Malawi
by Chisomo Kalinga On 24–26 August 2017, the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College in Zomba hosted its first international medical humanities conference, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust. It was an honour to be part of the team that helped support this initiative with our hosts. Scholars, creative practitioners, policymakers, NGOs and members of […]
Medical and Health Humanities in Africa – Inclusion, Access, and Social Justice
Wamkelekile, karibu, welkom, and welcome to this special issue of the journal titled ‘Medical and Health Humanities in Africa – Inclusion, Access, and Social Justice’. Medical and Health Humanities (MHH) is a nascent field on the African continent; while the research, teaching, and practices of many people can be categorised as being MHH, it is […]
Special Issue Focus: Medical Humanities in Africa
‘Medical and Health Humanities in Africa – Inclusion, Access, and Social Justice’ “Wamkelekile, karibu, welkom, and welcome,” begins the introduction to this special issue, guest edited by Carla Tsampiras[1], Nolwazi Mkhwanazi[2], and Victoria Hume[3]. In this, our final issue of 2018, we are pleased to present works from parts of Africa on the subject of […]
Introducing December’s Issue: A Focus on Africa
Our focus for 2019 will be Global Outreach. Given our present moment, with crises of health brought about by climate change, political upheaval, social injustice, and the straining of public health systems, we must seek international and cross-cultural dialogue. Global problems need global communication and an understanding that those most likely to be affected by […]
“A Kind of Agonie in my Thoughts”: Writing Puritan and Non-Conformist Women’s Pain in 17th-Century England
In this soundbite, Alison Searle tells us about her article, published in our current issue, “Pain and its Paradoxes”. Searle’s article, “‘A Kind of Agonie in my Thoughts’: Writing Puritan and Non-Conformist Women’s Pain in 17th-Century England”, explores the ways in which pain transgresses the borders between the corporeal, the mental, and the spiritual, borders […]
Coping with Chronic Pain, Illness and Incarceration
In his article for our June special issue, ‘Pain and its Paradoxes’, Drew Leder looks at the intersections between those suffering chronic pain and those experiencing long-term incarceration in his article, ‘Coping with Chronic Pain, Illness and Incarceration: What Patients and Prisoners Have to Teach Each Other (and All of Us).’ Leder takes a phenomenological […]
Optimal Relief for Pain at the End of Life: A Caregiver’s Tale
In his article for our June special issue, “Pain and its Paradoxes”, David B. Morris offers a heartfelt account of his experience occupying a “third-person position” as an end-of-life caregiver to his late wife, Ruth C. Morris, and a reflection on the role of palliative pain-relief for the dying. Remarking on how biomedicine is often […]