Article Summary by Hye Youn Park In today’s era, hospitals have solidified their position as central hubs closely intertwined with human life, overcoming numerous diseases through remarkable progress in science and technology. Despite being the focal point of human existence, discussions about hospital spaces often linger within the therapeutic tool perspective, emphasizing the effectiveness of […]
Latest articles
Redefining Global Cardiac Surgery Through an Intersectionality Lens
Article Summary by Dominique Vervoort, Lina A Elfaki, Maria Servito, Karla Yael Herrera-Morales and Kudzai Kanyepi Around the world, more than six billion people are unable to undergo heart surgery. This is a result of an absence of surgeons and other health workers, insufficient money or health insurance, limited supplies, or a combination of factors. […]
An Orisha in Bristol: Henrietta Lacks and Mojisola Adebayo’s Family Tree
Blog by Taylor Riley Bristol, UK is a monument to the intertwining of histories of slavery and medicine. Smaller, literal monuments around the city tell its stories. There is the plinth that once held the statue of slave trader Edward Colston, which Black Lives Matter protestors toppled and drowned in the harbor in 2020. The […]
“And Then It Spreads”: Contagion and Disease as Metaphors of Sociomoral Contamination in Charles Burns’ Graphic Novel Black Hole
Article Summary by Arindam Nandi and Avishek Parui This article examines how Charles Burns’ graphic novel Black Hole situates states of contagion and disease as metaphors of social and moral contamination. Set in suburban Seattle in the 1970s, Black Hole depicts the lives of a set of teenagers in the midst of navigating a sexually […]
Creative Writing Can Help Improve One’s Health: A South African Study Shows How
Article Summary by Dawn Garisch, Janet Giddy, Giles Griffin and Steve Reid From the beginning of recorded history, people in diverse cultures have embraced the idea that creative expression, including visual art, stories, dance and music, contributes to healing. In recent times the therapeutic benefit of expressive writing has been well researched in the global north, […]
Podcast with Matimba Swana and Kumeri Bandara
Podcast with Matimba Swana EIC Brandy Schillace speaks to Matimba Swana and Kumeri Bandara about the Black and Brown in Bioethics program, and working harder to bring ECR scholars into print. TRANSCRIPT SCHILLACE: Hello and welcome to the Medical Humanities Podcast. This is Brandy Schillace, your host and the Editor-in-Chief of Medical Humanities […]
Illustrating End of Life Care
Wendy MacNaughton, How to Say Goodbye (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023. ISBN-13: 978-1639730858). Book Review by Jess Libow In her 2023 guide to caring for the dying, How to Say Goodbye, illustrator Wendy MacNaughton implores her readers to look closely. As she explains in the introduction, drawing is one way of doing just that. The same might […]
How and Why to Use ‘Vulnerability’: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Disease Risk, Indeterminacy and Normality
Article Summary by Andrea Ford In recent years, you hear a lot about ’vulnerability’—for example, during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the UK the idea that some people are more vulnerable than others and should therefore be treated differently came up often. We thought it was interesting how vulnerability seemed to be used interchangeably with risk […]
They Are Not All Wolves: Menstruation, Young Adult Fiction and Nuancing the Teenage Boy
Article Summary by Jemma Walton Literary depictions of menstruation are scarce, despite the fierce interest which accompanied the 1970 publication of Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; a Young Adult novel that ends with the young female protagonist thanking God for the arrival of her first period. However, an intensification in menstrual activism across […]
Turning Good Intentions into Good Outcomes: Ethical Dilemmas at a Student-Run Clinic and a Rubric for Reflective Action
Blog by Nicholas Peoples, Thomas Gebert and Dana L Clark Student-run clinics represent a unique medical education and healthcare delivery model powered largely by good intentions. These good intentions may produce questionable results, however, when juxtaposed with intense academic pressure for students to fill their curriculum vitae with personal achievements, leadership roles, and peer-reviewed publications. […]