Article Summary by Gillian Lemermeyer The central notion of my research program is that the way we are with each other matters. This idea is grounded in an ethics of inclusion in a changing world and is situated in the close interface between nurses and other healthcare practitioners with the people in their care. I […]
Category: Special Issues
Biocolonial Pregnancies: Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017)
Article Summary by Anna Kemball As part of the Special Issue on Global Health Humanities, this article considers Native American experiences of reproductive healthcare through the lens of biocolonialism. Biocolonialism is a form of colonialism that extracts value and profit from Indigenous knowledge, living organisms, and biological or genetic material. How we examine the relationship […]
‘Living in a Material World’: Frankenstein and New Materialism
Article Summary by Jasmine Yong Hall Frankenstein is generally taken as a cautionary tale of scientific arrogance. The moral is not to “play God” or to go beyond the boundaries of nature. However, what is being described is really a fear of unintended consequences which can be mitigated through better understanding and better control. Scientists […]
Nations Must be Defended: Public Health, Enmity, and Immunity in Katherine Mayo’s Mother India
Article Summary by Sandhya Shetty The article published in Medical Humanities (special issue on Global Health) is one harvest of my longstanding engagement with Katherine Mayo’s Mother India (1927), a uniquely ill-natured attempt to turn the tide of interwar British imperial history. The article draws materials from a longer book project that seeks new ways […]
Sea of Bodies a Medical Discourse of the Refugee Crisis in Tears of Salt: A Doctor’s Story
Article Summary by Lava Asaad and Matthew Spencer In the memoir Tears of Salt: A Doctor’s Story, Pietro Bartolo (2018) relates visceral descriptions of illness, injury, and death endured by refugees on their journey of escape to the shores of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean. The medical gaze of the doctor/author further complicates the political and […]
Complexities in Interdisciplinary Community Engagement Projects: Some Reflections and Lessons from an Applied Drama and Theatre Project in Diabetes Care
Article Summary by Jennifer Watermeyer There is a growing interest in using drama and theatre to share health information with the public as part of community engagement projects. This process can be challenging for several reasons. In this paper, we describe the process and pitfalls of a project that involved the development and performance of […]
May I Have Your Uterus? The Contribution of Considering Complexities Preceding Live Uterus Transplantation
Article Summary by Lisa Guntram Swedish researchers have investigated since the end of the 1990s whether uterus transplantation, in combination with IVF, can make it possible for women without a uterus to become pregnant. However, to participate in the such research in Sweden, it has been necessary that the recipient find a donor, preferably a […]
Reflections from Tales of Treatment
Article Summary by Marco J Haenssgen, Nutcha Charoenboon, Patthanan Thavethanutthanawin and Kanokporn Wibunjak Listen to Nutcha (Ern) Charoenboon discuss the research project below (full script below bionotes): Read the full article on the Medical Humanities journal. Global health has often been critiqued for neglecting the voices of poor, rural, and indigenous peoples around the […]
What is Compassion?
Article Summary by Sarah Chaney Today, this trait is thought to be central to nursing. Policymakers, healthcare staff and politicians alike have debated the topic over the past decade. They have asked whether compassion can be taught or is caring an inborn trait. How might one measure or test someone’s ‘emotional intelligence’? And is compassion […]
Delirium in Hospital: Violence, Vulnerability and Humanity
Article Summary by Victoria Hume In the UK, hospitalisations from Covid have been increasing steadily since the summer. On 18 November, 923 covid patients were mechanically ventilated in hospital – this represents about a quarter of all mechanically ventilated patients.1 The Nuffield Trust tells us that covid patients typically stay longer in ICU than surgical […]