Article Summary by Lakshmi Krishnan and Michael J. Neuss What is the work of physicians? Are we historians, detectives, magicians, or educators? Or is our craft merely clerical work, our labor just data entry for other users—both human and non-human, intelligent and artificially intelligent—in non-clinical areas like finance and research? Physicians today express deep anxieties […]
Latest articles
Understanding the Value of Art Prompts in an Online Narrative Medicine Workshop: An Exploratory-Descriptive Focus Group Study
Article Summary by Nancy Choe Narrative medicine supports healthcare training by helping healthcare workers develop narrative competence skills and use creativity through writing prompts. Narrative medicine is also used to enhance empathy and counter burnout among healthcare workers. While evidence suggests that arts-based interventions can benefit healthcare workers’ well-being and personal growth, using art prompts […]
Italian Nurses in Crisis, interview with Mattia Colombo and Gianluca Matarrese, co-directors of documentary film ‘Il Posto’ (Italy, 2023)
Interview by Khalid Ali ‘Il Posto’ is showing on Saturday 24 June at Bertha DocHouse, as part of the Cinecittà Italian Docs season, https://dochouse.org/event/italian-doc-season-a-steady-job/ The report ‘Sustain and Retain in 2022 and beyond’ showed how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted on the already fragile state of the global nursing workforce.1 The situation in Italy is […]
Bittersweet Potatoes: Noura Kevorkian, Documentary Film Maker, Reflects on the Plight and Resilience of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
Interview with Noura Kevorkian by Dr Khalid Ali, film and media correspondent In this podcast, Noura Kevorkian discusses the personal and professional journey of her award-winning documentary ‘Batata’, its impact on the film’s protagonists, and how the film advocates for the rights of refugees around the world. Noura Kevorkian is a Syrian/ Lebanese documentary […]
Contact Building: Emotional Exchanges Between Counsellees and Counsellors in the Late Socialist Period in Poland
Article Summary by Agnieszka Kościańska This article focuses on Wiesław Sokoluk, one of the key Polish youth counsellors and sex educators active during the late socialist period (the 1970s and 1980s), looking at his path to becoming a sex educator and youth counsellor as well as his practice in both fields. Sokoluk started his career […]
Sparing the Doctor’s Blushes: The Use of Sexually Explicit Films for the Purpose of Sexual Attitude Reassessment (SAR) in the Training of Medical Practitioners in Britain During the 1970s
Article Summary by Rob Irwin How best to prepare healthcare professionals to address their patients’ sexual health and wellbeing concerns is a question still in need of an answer. This article describes an early educational approach, the Sexual Attitude Reassessment (SAR) seminar, that was used in some British medical schools during the 1970s to prepare […]
The Production of Medicoethical Misconduct: Medical Ethics and Vivisection in Wilkie Collins’s Heart and Science
Article Summary by Thomas G. Cole II Authors of popular fiction often question the world around them by telling stories that reflect their world. In so doing, these authors provide a necessary and sometimes powerful commentary on contemporary issues. This was no different for the popular fiction authors of the Victorian era. In this essay, […]
Contributions of Hippocratic Medicine and Plato to Today’s Debate Over Health, Social Determinants and the Authority of Biomedicine
Article Summary by Susan Levin Though the portion of the USA’s gross domestic product allocated to healthcare vastly surpasses that directed to other major areas of societal concern, outcomes for life expectancy and infant mortality are highly disappointing. By such measures, the USA also fares poorly in international comparisons. One’s impression that, by giving pre-eminence […]
The Paramedic at Work: A Sociology of a New Profession
McCann, L. (2022). The Paramedic at Work: A Sociology of a New Profession. Oxford University Press. Book Review by Robin Burrow Many healthcare systems across the world are in crisis. For most, this is not a new state of affairs, though it has undoubtedly been exasperated by the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the […]
How Swedish Residents Navigate Global Medical Markets
Blog by Emma Eleonorasdotter, Rui Liu and Susanne Lundin The global consumption of medicines has been rising and shows no signs of decreasing.1 In 2021, 13 percent of Swedish women and 7 percent of Swedish men took antidepressants, and 26 percent of both men and women were prescribed anti-hypertensives.2 While over-reliance on medicines in […]