Article Summary by Lucky Tomdi This article is part of an ongoing project that examines the historical roles and experiences of African health workers in Ghana during the late 19th and 20th centuries. It examines how gender, race, and class shaped the participation of Africans in colonial and Christian missionary biomedical services from 1860 to […]
Tag: research
(Post)confessional Mode and Psychological Surveillance in The Crown and Fleabag
Article Summary by Sarah Hagaman Two fictional therapy sessions are at the heart of my article, “(Post)confessional Mode and Psychological Surveillance in The Crown and Fleabag.” In Season 4 of The Crown, Princess Margaret—the Queen’s younger sister—discovers she may suffer from a hereditary mental illness. The second, Season 2 of Fleabag shows a short, bizarre […]
Authority and Medical Expertise: Arthur Conan Doyle in The Idler
Article Summary by Anne Chapman Arthur Conan Doyle’s medical and writing careers intertwined (highlighted most recently by the current BBC programme Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle) and his work has a history of being read in the light of his medical expertise. He wrote at a time when the professionalisation […]
“It Is Difficult For Us To Treat Their Pain”. Health Professionals’ Perceptions of Somali Pastoralists in the Context of Pain Management: A Conceptual Model
Article Summary by Elenore Baum Pain relief in Sub-Saharan Africa is a major public health concern, particularly for marginalized populations such as pastoralists. Their seasonal mobility and remote lifestyle with limited access to health services contribute to their vulnerability towards poorer health outcomes, including pain. To improve pastoralists’ access to pain treatment in biomedical health […]
Transparent Boundaries as Scenographies of Trust: The COVID-19 Pandemic from the View of Material Cultural Studies and Artistic Works
Article Summary by Monika Ankele and Céline Kaiser From the start, the profound transformations that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic found expression in a plethora of objects and facilities that dominated our daily lives far beyond the clinical sphere. Supermarkets, hotel receptions, taxis, restaurants, doctors’ surgeries and even schools were equipped with plexiglass screens of all […]
What Makes a ‘Good Doctor’? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Perspectives from Medical Students with Lived Experience as Patients
Article Summary by Erene Stergiopoulos and Maria Athina (Tina) Martimianakis What counts a ‘good doctor’ depends on who we ask. Research has shown that patients prioritise communication and empathy, while doctors emphasise medical expertise, and medical students describe a combination of the two. This study explored the concepts of the ‘good doctor’ held by medical […]
Forensic Rhetoric: COVID-19 and the Boundaries of Healthcare Evidence
Article Summary by David Houston Jones The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the role of medical evidence in public health presentations. This article investigates the rhetoric of those presentations, from ‘podium’ presentations such as press conferences to online forums and visualisations of the virus. In all of these, rhetorical forms arise from the […]
Solidarity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from a Nine-Country Interview Study in Europe
Article Summary by Katharina Kieslich, Amelia Fiske, Marie Gaille, Ilaria Galasso, Susi Geiger, Nora Hangel, Ruth Horn, Marjolein Lanzing, Sébastien Libert, Elisa Lievevrouw, Federica Lucivero, Luca Marelli, Barbara Prainsack, Franziska Schönweitz, Tamar Sharon, Wanda Spahl, Ine Van Hoyweghen and Bettina M. Zimmermann Solidarity is a term that many people are familiar with, but most would […]
Listening, learning, caring: exploring assemblages of, ethics of and pathways to care for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)
Article Summary by Andrea LaMarre, Kathryn McGuigan and Melinda Lewthwaite What does care mean, in the context of treatment for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)? In this paper, we explored that question, engaging with stories shared with us by 14 caregivers of individuals with ARFID. We were specifically interested in how participants described their […]
UK Media Responses to HIV through the Lens of COVID-19: A Study of Multidirectional Memory
Article Summary by Fran Pheasant-Kelly Covid-19 affected, and continues to affect us all to some degree. For those who were around in the 1980s, there are aspects of the virus that chillingly recall the initial terrors of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Such connections are evident in news media coverage of Covid-19 – this article examines those […]