Article Summary by Steven Lubet and David Tuller Today we present the very last of MH essays on CFS. The medical condition known as “chronic fatigue syndrome” has often been presumed to be primarily caused by psychological and behavioural factors, and therefore “reversible” by cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or graded exercise therapy (GET). In 2015, […]
Latest articles
The Value of Evaluation: Differential Attainment Initiatives for BAME Trainees
Blog by Sharon Yip Talk of access to public institutions such as healthcare has been amplified in recent months, due to the Black Lives Matter movement. However, less discussion has been focussed on internal access for staff members working within medicine. Many initiatives aim to improve access to medical education and reduce differential attainment for […]
‘The Internet Both Reassures and Terrifies’: Exploring the More-Than-Human Worlds of Health Information Using the Story Completion Method
Article Summary by Deborah Lupton This article reports the findings of a study using an innovative approach to understanding people’s beliefs and practices: the story completion method. This method asks people to complete story ‘stems’, writing about a fictional character. The completed narratives are then analysed for the shared cultural norms and discourses they revealed. […]
No Words: A Virtual Choir of Healthcare Workers Memorializes 500,000 Americans Lost to the Pandemic
Announcement by The Nocturnists The U.S. has reached half a million deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic. To mark this moment, The Nocturnists medical storytelling community has created No Words, a video memorial honoring those lost to the pandemic and the healthcare workers who cared for them. No Words Memorial Video: https://bit.ly/TheNocturnists_NoWords No Words Webpage: https://thenocturnists.com/no-words […]
Women, the State and Film Activism
Film Festival Announcement by Khalid Ali The 25th Human Rights Watch Film Festival, UK Digital Edition, Barbican Cinema On Demand, 18–26 March 2021, https://ff.hrw.org/london Reproductive rights and the right to family, survivors of rape and access to healthcare are the focus of several documentaries in the 25th edition of Human Rights Watch Film Festival taking place from 18-26 March, presented exclusively on the […]
The Space Between Words: On the Description of Parkinson’s Disease in Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections’
Article Summary by Ben Rutter and Rodney Hermeston Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections (2001) is one of the most prominent novels to feature a character with Parkinson’s Disease. In this paper we look at the language used by Franzen to capture Parkinson’s Disease and to describe the protagonist Alfred Lambert. We use linguistic analysis to consider […]
‘This Place Is Not for Children Like Her’: Disability, Ambiguous Belonging and the Claiming of Disadvantage in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Article Summary by Michelle Botha and Brian Watermeyer This paper explores ideas about disability, identity and belonging in the context of post-apartheid South Africa. The first author (MB) reflects on the intersection of disability, gender, race and language in her experience. The paper revolves around MB’s recollection of her first year of primary school which […]
Eggs, Sugar, Grated Bones: Colour-Based Food Preferences in Autism, Eating Disorders, and Beyond
Article Summary by Mattias Strand This article explores colour-based food preferences and selective eating, with a focus on autism spectrum disorder and so-called avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)—an eating disorder characterized by restrictive eating in the absence of body image concerns. As many parents can testify, it is immensely common for children to display patterns […]
What is the Cultural Value of Dying in an Era of Assisted Dying?
Article Summary by Naomi Richards and Marian Krawczyk Assisted dying—the ability to be assisted by a medical professional to end your life at a time of your choosing – is now available in a number of jurisdictions around the world, for those who satisfy the criteria. This paper raises the question of whether dying will […]
Trauma–Aware Care
Blog by Lily Kim While chairing Holocaust Education Week (UJA Federation) and leading Equity for the Canadian Disability Studies Association (CDSA), I recognized the need to reconcile diverse intersectional perspectives in Canada. The current situation is widely viewed as a healthcare crisis brought about by the COVID-19 virus. However, the pandemic has revealed the existential […]