To say that it is sometimes appropriate, even obligatory, for guidelines to be ignored will not make me any friends amongst those campaigning for more equitable access to NHS funded IVF treatment. Nevertheless, and in spite of my discomfort with the inequitable access to IVF treatment experienced by people in different parts of the UK, I’d […]
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Today was a difficult day: thoughts on being useful
Today has been- to use popular management speak- challenging. Today was one of those days when, in spite of twenty-two years as a doctor, I find myself distressed at the suffering that I’ve encountered. And I’m left wondering how to find the right balance between being useful, of use to my patients, and still being […]
Medical Humanities Resources: Visual, Performed, Oral and Written Stories of Illness
One of the primary aims of this blog is to enable quicker and easier communication between the providers and users of medical humanities resources. One of the most important of these types of resources focus on the importance of the stories and experiences of those affected by illness. Sometimes the aim in recording these stories […]
American Society for Bioethics & Humanities Conference:Cleveland, USA, 23-26th October 2008
Another fantastic conference, this time for bioethicists and for the wider medical humanities community. And an open invitation to speakers and delegates at this and other medical humanities conferences and meetings:send us your papers so that your hard work can be shared with a wider audience. To submit your paper via our electronic submission system […]
Association of Medical Humanities Conference: Glasgow 7-8 July 2008
For anyone interested in the medical humanities I highly recommend this conference. Entitled “Creative space: arts, humanities and healthcare”, the conference themes include visual arts and medicine; literature and medicine; art, architecture, and design in healthcare; and medical humanities in undergraduate and postgraduate curricula. […]
Boston Medics Make Music in London: 21st -29th June 2008
Please see below details of a musical tour of London with a medical humanities flavour. Details provided by Dr Lisa M. Wong, President and Violinist Longwood Symphony Orchestra. […]
Dying to protect the NHS: a political perversion of healthcare
The title of this posting refers to a funding controversy causing outrage amongst patients, doctors, and other health care professionals in the United Kingdom: namely the decision by the government to deny free National Health Service (NHS) treatment to any patient, in England or Wales, who decides to pay for life-prolonging cancer treatment that the […]
Sex and the City Beirut Style
Caramel, to be precise: a delicious film from Lebanon that gives a brief insight into the lives of five women friends. Unlike in Sex and the City, there isn’t any on-screen sex in this film. Nevertheless, the main protagonists in these two newly released films would, I suspect, recognise many of their own challenges in […]