Following Andrew Marr’s recent stroke and successful return to work, stroke and its consequences have been a national topic; stroke survivors and their families in the UK have gained hope that a stroke does not necessarily mean an end to one’s career or life. On the 29th of October 2014, the World Stroke Organization (WSO) […]
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Poetry, Science and Medicine
Through the Door is a collaborative project involving Archives for London and Poet in the City. Six poets have been commissioned to create new works based on archives that include those of St Paul’s Cathedral and The British Library. This week I attended a reading from the selection of poems – The Bone Ship […]
Parkinson’s Disease and Being Human: Through a Lens
‘Over the Hill’ at Create Gallery New England House New England Street, Brighton, BN1 4GH until 17 October Tim Andrews was working as a solicitor when he was diagnosed in 2006 with Parkinson’s Disease and was obliged to retire. The following year he responded to an ad in Time Out for ‘real-life’ nude models – […]
Silence: A Woman’s Wound
In a healing relationship with the wounded, we are witnesses; we are bearers of witnessing those moments when another reveals their vulnerability, and when we recognise such vulnerability then we find the unanswered voices. The foundation of any healing is when we close our eyes without losing the perception of how the other— how you— […]
Guest Essay: “A mind diseased”: Examining the evolution of madness using Shakespeare’s Macbeth by Sarah Ahmed
INTRODUCTION Over the years, our understanding of what it means to be mad has evolved. Ancient civilisations held the belief that madness was as a result of spiritual possession; the Enlightenment’s concept of rationality remade madness into an external manifestation of internal grief; in the last century we have started to develop biological theories […]
Book Review: Final Chapters: Writings About the End of Life
‘Final Chapters’ is the product of a creative writing competition organised through the Dying Matters Coalition, which was established in 2009 by the National Council for Palliative Care. The book invites 30 contributors to describe their reflections on dying. […]
Medicine Unboxed: Students – Call for Participation
Medicine Unboxed aims to examine medicine from the perspective of the arts and humanities, and arises from the view that good medicine demands more than scientific and technical expertise, also requiring ethical judgment, empathy, and an understanding of human experience. Last year saw the first Medicine Unboxed: Students meeting at which students of the arts, health and […]
The Artist in Theatre: On the Primacy of the Subjective Narrative by Jac Saorsa
Drawing Women’s Cancer explores the lived experience of gynaecological illness through a unique interrelation between art and medical science. Based in Cardiff and supported by Cardiff University and Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, the project began in 2012 as a collaboration between myself and Amanda Tristram, gynaecological surgeon. Since then it has produced two […]
Dr Ahmed Rashid: “Diseases of the heart: Where theology meets cardiology”
Associations between religion and health have been debated for many years. This interest has been paralleled in the medical literature and has led to the inclusion of religious, cultural and sociological topics into medical school curricula, encouraging future clinicians to adopt a more holistic approach to understanding patients and their behaviours. Much of the research […]
Deborah Bowman in conversation with Leslie Jamison, author of ‘The Empathy Exams’
Join the Editor of Medical Humanities, Deborah Bowman, in conversation with Leslie Jamison as they discuss her acclaimed essay collection ‘The Empathy Exams’ and more. Leslie’s work questions how we understand each other and the concept of empathy, drawing on her time as an actor working with medical students and her own experiences of […]