Like many of our readers, we at BMJ Medical Humanities have been diligently following responses to the present pandemic. Much of the blog content has shifted to look at the ways medical humanities and social justice address the crisis, and recent submissions to the journal also reflect the shifting issues around COVID 19 spread […]
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The Opportunity of Crisis
Blog by Austin O Carroll The Chinese understand the word crisis to mean danger with opportunity. A crisis can harness many responses, some of which can resolve in a short space of time what have been age-old problems. The issue of homelessness has dominated Irish media headlines for over a decade. It has also been […]
Abortion Care during COVID-19 pandemic
Blog by Neha R. Pidatala During the current COVID-19 pandemic, many states in the US have ordered or supported the cessation of both medical and surgical abortion, while few have directed only the surgical abortion to halt. Some states have threatened jail times and massive fines if the laws are not upheld. Ohio singled out […]
A Story of Kindness during the 2020 Coronavirus Crisis
Visual Audiobook by Luca M. Damiani View the audiobook on Issuu in English, French, Italian and Spanish here. With so much worry, hardship and for some deep sorrow everywhere, it can feel useless and even unnecessary to keep making art; but maybe it is even more important than usual, that we do so. This is […]
On What It Feels Like to Be A Problem
Book Review by Anna Stenning James McGrath, The Naming of Adult Autism: Culture, Science, Identity. Rowman and Littlefield International 2019 [paperback version], 272 pages. ISBN 9781783480418 In an article for the Poetry Society, Joanna Limburg explained that her collection The Autistic Alice[1] approached the issue of what it meant to write as an autistic subject […]
‘Never Forget’: Fictionalising the Holocaust Survivor with Dementia
Article Summary by Sue Vice I was prompted to think about the topic of Holocaust survivors with dementia by reading Emma Healey’s intriguing 2014 novel Elizabeth is Missing. The novel’s premise is that the central character Maud, who lives with an undiagnosed condition of memory-loss, can nonetheless solve a wartime mystery because her long-term recall […]
Accessing Health—and Continuing Research—in a Time of Lockdown: Covid-19 and LJMU’s Liverpool Health Commission
Blog by Gerard Diver LJMU’s Liverpool Health Commission (2019-2020) is a UK-wide project aimed at influencing the development of health policies in relation to the first 1000 days of life (covering the period from conception to age two). Prior to the arrival of the Coronavirus, the Commission had spent seven months gathering oral evidence from […]
Disability, Visibility and the COVID-19 Crisis
Podcast Interview with Alice Wong Alice Wong is a disabled activist, media maker, and consultant. She is the Founder and Director of the Disability Visibility Project® (DVP), an online community dedicated to creating, sharing and amplifying disability media and culture created in 2014. Alice is also a co-partner in four projects: DisabledWriters.com, a resource to […]
The Impact of Communication on Access to Genetic Testing for Limited English Proficient Populations
The last time my grandmother returned from the doctor’s office, she handed me a pamphlet that explained her condition and the different procedures she could undergo. Then she asked me what she should do. As an immigrant from Nicaragua, her preferred language is Spanish. Even though she knows basic English, it’s difficult for her to […]
Medicus: The Power of Knowledge—A Novel Approach to Medical History
Exhibition Review by Prof Desmond O’Neill, MD, FRCPI The closing of an innovative exhibition of medical history in the ancient German city of Speyer may seem to be a small loss in the context of the many enormous tragic losses of life and livelihood of Covid-19. However, medical history has insights to offer on how […]