From awkwardness to impropriety: conceptualising the male doctor’s embarrassing body in Victorian medical literature By Alison Moulds (University of Oxford) This post is based on a paper given at the “Embarrassing Bodies” conference, organised by Birkbeck, University of London In 1858, Dr Edward Lane – owner of the Moor Park hydropathic establishment in Surrey […]
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Book Review: Brett Kahr’s ‘Tea with Winnicott’
Tea with Winnicott by Brett Kahr with illustrations by Alison Bechdel. Published by Karnac, 2016. Reviewed by Dr Neil Vickers. Brett Kahr’s Tea with Winnicott is the first volume to appear in Karnac’s new ‘Interviews With Icons’ series, in which contemporary psychoanalysts conduct imaginary interviews with major figures from the psychoanalytic pantheon. […]
‘I am Book’ – Clare Best
Illustrated talk for University of Kent symposium on Artists’ Books and the Medical Humanities, on 21 April 2016 http://www.kent.ac.uk/english/research/conferences/artistsbooks.html I had been so looking forward to this wonderful symposium devised, designed and immaculately planned by Stella Bolaki, and to seeing the exhibition of Martha Hall’s and other book artists’ work – which is still on […]
Film Review: The Fugitive Doctor in ‘River’
‘River’, Canada, Laos, 2015, directed by Jamie M. Dagg Released on DVD and digital download on 18th July 2016 Reviewed by Dr Khalid Ali Doctors and crimes of professional misconduct have been the focus of films such as ‘Coma, USA, 1978’, and ‘Shutter Island, USA, 2010’, while doctors volunteering in NGOs in troubled zones […]
Book Review: The Way We Die Now
Seamus O’Mahony, The Way We Die Now. Head of Zeus, 2016. Reviewed by Richard Smith Perhaps the first and most important thing to say about this book is that it’s a joy to read. I started it on a flight from Dhaka to Mexico City when I was exhausted, but quickly […]
Wellcome Book Prize Winner 2016 – ‘It’s All In Your Head’ reviewed
Suzanne O’Sullivan, It’s All In Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness. London: Vintage, 2016; first publ in hardback 2015 by Chatto & Windus Reviewed by Professor Edward Shorter The very subtitle of the book makes one nervous: “stories of imaginary illness.” If there is one phrase that psychosomatic patients – who have symptoms […]
Poetry and Medicine: Prize Winners
In April I attended the 7th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine where the 2016 Hippocrates Awards were announced. A fascinating day, the programme included critiques on Philip Larkin’s The Building, Celia de Freine Blood Debts, Mary Kennan Herbert’s Skin Man series, as well as a presentation on Poetry, Psychoanalysis and Ageing, and a discussion around the evidence for the benefits […]
Film Review: stories from Arab women during the Spring Revolutions
‘Our oath’ short film, 2015, directed by Laura Finney I was intrigued and moved by ‘The trials of Spring’, a documentary film depicting the fight of Arab women during the Spring Revolutions in 2010 (http://www.trialsofspring.com/). The film portrays heart-felt human stories of women from Syria, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, Tunisia, and Egypt. Filming took place […]
THIS IS A VOICE at Wellcome Collection reviewed
‘His Masters Voice’. Painting by Francis Barraud, 1919. Credit:Courtesy of the EMI Group Archive Trust THIS IS A VOICE Wellcome Collection, 14 April – 31 July 2016 Reviewed by Steven Kenny Approaching the exhibition entrance of THIS IS A VOICE at the Wellcome Collection, it is easy to think the voice is treated […]
Book review: Social Class in the 21st Century
Mike Savage, Social Class in the 21st Century, Pelican, 2015 Reviewed by Jacob King, Medical Student. You may have heard about the Great British Class Survey, you may have even completed the Great British Class survey (GBCS) or tried their online Class Calculator. In 2015 Mike Savage and colleagues summarised the findings of […]