by Julie Parle, Rebecca Hodes and Thembisa Waetjen In this audio clip, Thembisa Waetjen and Rebecca Hodes discuss their article, co-authored with Julie Parle, which explores a century of pharmaceutical politics through a close historical account of three medicaments. In African contexts, historical research necessarily engages with experiences of colonisation/decolonisation, which have shaped local and […]
Category: Global Health
Music Composition to Explore Delirium in Hospital: A Johannesburg-Based Study
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] […]
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 […]
A Turn Toward Global Outreach
What does it mean to ‘think culturally’ about medical and health humanities? Earlier this year, I attended the Oslo Cultural Crossings of Care conference, which intended to discuss health humanities ‘across boundaries.’ The aim was a noble one, and I think quite successful (we hope to share some more articles from that conference in the […]
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 […]
Humanitarian Evidence Week, Nov 23
We bring our supported blog posts for HEW to a close today. As a reminder if you are just tuning in, HEW2018 is an initiative led by Evidence Aid, in collaboration with the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford, to promote a more evidence-based approach to disaster relief. Evidence Aid seeks to: highlight which interventions […]
Humanitarian Aid Week, Nov 22
Here at MH blog, we plan to host some of the corresponding blog posts and activities occurring during HEW. The #medicalhumanities and #healthhumanities promote social justice issues, and so also global health and outreach. Humanitarian relief, in the form of medicine and basic needs, naturally aligns with our attempts to engage culturally and to reach […]