Cannes, films and Medicine The forthcoming Cannes Film Festival (11-22nd May 2016) is described by its director Thierry Fremaux as ‘A celebration of cinematographic art’ http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en.html. If you are lucky enough to be attending the glittering, entertaining and thought-provoking extravaganza, here are five films in the official selection exploring the lives of patients and […]
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The Reading Room: When Breath Becomes Air
Hope, Oncology and Death Seamus O’Mahony When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. London: The Bodely Head, 2016. Paul Kalanithi was nearing the end of his neurosurgical training at Stanford when aged thirty-six, he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. He had never smoked. He was referred to an oncologist specializing in […]
A little Danish mermaid and other stories (of rare diseases)
A reflection on Sofie Layton’s Under the Microscope by Giovanni Biglino (Bristol Heart Institute, Bristol, UK) The voice of a little girl and the sunlight filtering through layers of green batik – a series of coral-like structures representing real heart models displayed under bell jars – anatomical drawings – and the story of […]
The Screening Room: The Aftermath of Stroke
Building bridges: two films about self-discovery after stroke Dr Khalid Ali Two recent films portray the aftermaths of stroke from different viewpoints: that of a stroke survivor in My Beautiful Broken Brain (UK 2016, directed Lotje Sodderland and Sophie Anderson, currently showing on Netflix) and that of the daughter of a stroke survivor in You See Me […]
The Reading Room: ‘Making Medical Knowledge’
Making Medical Knowledge By Miriam Solomon Oxford University Press, 2015 Reviewed by Dr Jonathan Fuller, University of Toronto We should forgive anyone unfamiliar with recent trends in ‘scientific medicine’ for thinking that within scientific medicine there are now multiple medicines to choose from: evidence-based medicine (EBM), translational medicine, narrative medicine, personalized medicine, […]
PCMD Medical Humanities Conference 2016
Ian Fussell Community Sub Dean UEMS In 2002, The Peninsula Medical School (now Peninsular College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD)) became the first UK medical school to integrate the medical humanities as core curriculum. Every year since, year four students engage in a six-month project alongside and mentored by an artist. The culmination […]
The Reading Room: This Living and Immortal Thing
And so it goes…this thing called life Fergus Shanahan This Living and Immortal Thing By Austin Duffy Granta Books, 2016 If authors write what they know, then Austin Duffy knows a lot, but This Living and Immortal Thing, his first novel, blends experience with fiction and offers more than informed opinion […]
The Reading Room: ‘Deaf Gain’
Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity H-Dirksen L. Bauman and Joseph J. Murray, Editors University of Minnesota Press, 2014 Reviewed by Dr Paul Dakin, GP Trainer in North London with research interest in the representation of d/Deaf people This book challenges the commonly held notion that deafness is an existence […]
Khalid Ali: ‘Let’s talk about death: a review of ‘Last cab to Darwin’, Australia 2015’
Let’s talk about death: a review of ‘Last cab to Darwin’, Australia 2015 5*, Directed by Jeremy Sims based on stage play by Reg Cribb Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) December 2015, possible release in UK cinemas 2016/17 The controversial subject of ‘euthanasia and assisted suicide’ has been a rich source for films; ‘Whose life […]
Ayesha Ahmad: ‘Lahore is an Illusion, Lahore is Everywhere’
The mango tree faded many shadows ago, its fruit became stones and the branches became a skeleton. Yet, the roots remained, and they embrace the soil in the womb of the earth. This was the cradle of my family’s birth. Now, blood is watering Lahore’s gardens. In sorrow, I remembered these words given to me a […]