We are seeking high quality blog posts on a broad range of issues related to health humanities. We especially look for submissions on themes related to social justice, global outreach, and inclusivity. We believe that the work of medical humanities is deeply entrenched in ethics, so we encourage reflections on our moral obligations toward beings enmeshed […]
Latest articles
CFP: Contribute to BMJ’s Medical Humanities Journal!
I’m Brandy Schillace, Editor in Chief of BMJ’s Medical Humanities Journal, an official journal of the Institute of Medical Ethics. We’ve spent the last four years working toward social justice, accessibility, global outreach, and inclusivity. We’ve welcomed research and writing from the LGBTQ and disability community, and included podcasts with activists and others dedicated to […]
Why We Should Care When Doctors Suffer Moral Injury
Interview by Janina Levin In July 2024, a man known for making nature videos on a YouTube channel named Goobie and Doobie posted a video with the headline: I Was an MIT Educated Neurosurgeon Now I’m Unemployed and Alone in the Mountains How Did I Get Here? This highly personal video explains why he quit […]
Doctorate of Medicine Degrees in Ayurveda: A Temerarious Step
Blog by G. L. Krishna A recent notification in The Gazette of India: Extraordinary1 has formalised the initiative of the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine to start Doctorate of Medicine (DM) courses in ayurveda. DM courses will be introduced for six subjects: psychiatry, hepatology, oncology, orthopaedics, reproductive medicine and gerontology. They are “intended […]
Ageing well in Hong Kong
All Shall Be Well (Ray Yeung, Hong Kong, 2024) Recently screened at the London Film Festival October 2024 Review by Khalid Ali, Film and Media correspondent The opening scenes of All Shall Be Well encapsulate several of the key contributory factors for healthy ageing. Pat (Maggie Li Lin Lin) and Angie (Patra Au Ga Man) […]
The Process of Healing from PTSD: Rebuilding and Sharing with the World
Love and Trouble (Amy Hardie, UK, 2024), premiered in Dokumentale Film Festival, Berlin October 2024. Review by Robert Abrams, Emeritus Professor, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York. Love and Trouble, a documentary film, portrays Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as it affects two protagonists: Kenneth, after repeated wartime experiences in combat; and Kerry, after an emotionally scarring […]
Democratising Healthcare Through Medical Education: In Conversation with Alan Bleakley
Interview by Pragya Dev and Binod Mishra The field of medical humanities has gained more attention in recent decades, particularly within medical institutions, where it was introduced to bring a more humanistic approach to medical practices. This interview with Professor Alan Bleakley expands on the relevance of medical humanities and addresses the challenges facing this […]
United in Grief
Review by Khalid Ali, film and media correspondent When the Light Breaks (Ljósbrot) (Rúnar Rúnarsson, Iceland, 2024) Showing at the LFF 16th and 17th October 2024 Research that explores the impact on adolescents of the sudden death of their peers is scarce.1 Rúnar Rúnarsson masterfully addresses this gap in ‘When the light breaks,’ […]
Conversations in Chaos
Blog by Kim Kain In Hindu tradition, the deity Vishnu periodically descends from the heavens to restore cosmic balance in times of chaos. On a morning in February 2023, in the midst of campus protests across the US centering on the Israel-Palestine crisis, a group of twenty medical school faculty members contemplated a sandstone sculpture […]
June 2024 Special Issue: Making Modern Maternity
Making Modern Maternity [Podcast] Whitney Wood, Heather A Love, Jerika Sanderson, Karen Weingarten The reckoning table, the periodoscope and the shaping of modern pregnancy in nineteenth-century print forms Mary Elizabeth Leighton, Lisa Surridge Motherhood, wet-nursing and nation: nineteenth-century Brazilian medical perspectives [read the article summary] Tiago Fernandes Maranhão “The highest in each class was a […]
Call for Abstracts: Journal Special Issue: “Queer Medical Humanities”
Co-editors: Benjamin Dalton (Lancaster University) Chase Ledin (University of Edinburgh) Maurice Nagington (University of Manchester) Background and Context The Queer Medical Humanities is a diverse, developing field at the intersections of the Medical Humanities and Queer Studies. Many strands of queer theory engage with medical and healthcare contexts in new and exciting ways. This includes […]
Who is Speaking for Bruce Willis? When Third Party Narratives Encroach on Patient Rights
Blog by Arlene Jackson The family of actor Bruce Willis first shared his diagnosis of aphasia and frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) via social media in 2022, stating: “Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities. As a result of this and with much […]