Essential(ist) medicine: promoting social explanations for racial variation in biomedical research [read the article summary] Iliya Gutin Extraordinary minds, impossible choices: mental health, special skills and television Rebecca C Beirne How The Fault in Our Stars illuminates four themes of the Adolescent End of Life Narrative [read the article summary] Anna Obergfell Kirkman, Jane A […]
Latest articles
Bridge Work: The Behavioural and Social Sciences in Dentistry
Blog by Patricia Neville As a social scientist working in oral health research and dental education, I am regularly frustrated about how closed dentistry is to the behavioural and social sciences. Working as a sociologist in oral health research can be a lonely place. I am treated as an “exotic animal” with “curious” tools and […]
Abuse of Trust: A Psychiatrist Eroding Professional Boundaries
Film Review by Khalid Ali, Film and Media Correspondent ‘The Shrink Next Door’ (TV miniseries directed by Michael Showalter and Jesse Peretz, USA, 2021, available on Apple TV). Caution: this review contains plot spoilers Psychiatrist-patient stories have been a prominent theme in American cinema; ‘Analyze This’ (Harold Ramis, USA, 1999), ‘Side Effects’ (Steven Soderbergh, USA, 2013), and ‘To the Bone’ (Marti […]
Wars and Sweets: Microbes, Medicines and other Moderns in and Beyond the(ir) Antibiotic Era
Article Summary by Coll de Lima Hutchison My article brings together diverse literatures in a playful manner to plot rises in antimicrobial resistance, COVID-19 and our warlike responses (e.g. increased surveillance of microbes, more rational disciplined subjects and increasing our antibiotic armentarium) to them, alongside other acts of ‘real’ war. It speculates that modern war […]
A Fantastic Voyage into the Human Body and Soul
Film Review by Khalid Ali, Film and Media Correspondent ‘De Humani Corporis Fabrica’ (Lucien Giles Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel, France, 2022), showing on 14th and 16th of October 2022 at the London Film Festival. The human body and soul have always been an enigma for creative artists to decode in their work. Lucien Giles Castaing-Taylor and […]
Capable of Being in Uncertainties: Applied Medical Humanities in Undergraduate Medical Education
Article Summary by Neepa Thacker, Jennifer Wallis and Jo Winning What are the skills required by the 21st-century doctor to deliver the best person-centred care? Medical humanities have a vital role to play in undergraduate medical education where medicine is seen as an ‘art’ as well as a ‘science’ (Wald, McFarland, and Markovina 2018). We […]
Dehumanising Old Age, Devaluing Care, and Dismantling the NHS
Film Review by Khalid Ali, Film and Media Correspondent ‘Allelujah’ (Richard Eyre, UK, 2022) showing at the London Film Festival on 9th and 11th October Alan Bennett’s 2018 play ‘Allelujah’ was an insightful reflection on the big challenges currently facing the UK: an expanding population of octo and nonagenarians, limited health and social care resources, […]
Empire of Pain: How One Family’s Addiction to Profit Contributed to the Opioid Epidemic
Book Review by Isabella Watts Patrick Radden Keefe. Empire of Pain: How One Family’s Addiction to Profit Contributed to the Opioid Epidemic. Picador 2021. ISBN-13: 978-1984899019, 640 pages. They say that life can be stranger than fiction, and this is truly how readers will feel after finishing each chapter of Patrick Radden Keefe’s well-researched history […]
Science Fiction Authors’ Perspectives on Human Genetic Engineering
Article Summary by Derek So, Kelsey Crocker, Robert Sladek and Yann Joly One of the most notable scientific developments of the past decade was the CRISPR “gene editing” system, which made it much easier to change DNA sequences and even enabled scientists to create genetically modified children in China. Scientists, bioethicists, journalists and the public […]
Picturing Sanity, in Black and White
Article Summary by Bryan Mukandi This article tries to simulate a strange journey through a maze built around writers and artists, all grappling with the question of what it means to be ‘normal’, to ‘belong’. There are lots of ways to approach these questions. I focus on the experiences of people who struggle to maintain […]