Film Review by Franco Ferrarini, gastroenterologist and film reviewer ‘Prisoners’ directed by Denis Villeneuve (USA, 2013) Warning: the review contains plot spoliers! Villeneuve’s film, as clearly stated by its title, deals with the theme of captivity, not just physical but also, and perhaps mainly, psychological incarceration. ‘Prisoners’ is not just a compelling thriller with beautiful […]
Tag: Review
‘Born to be’ (Tania Cypriano, USA, 2019)
Film Review by Keerthi Gondy, B.S., a fourth-year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Mi. Born to Be is Tania Cypriano’s remarkably moving documentary about New York’s Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, where for the first time, transgender patients have access to transition-related health and surgical care. […]
Easing Pain on the Western Front
Book Review by Dr. Richard M. Prior Paul Stepansky. Easing Pain on the Western Front. McFarland & Company 2020 (paperback version), 232 pages. ISBN 978-1-4766-9001-9. Paul Stepansky’s Easing Pain on the Western Front provides a very new and unique insight into the experience of U.S. Army nurses providing direct care on the battlefields of the Western […]
On What It Feels Like to Be A Problem
Book Review by Anna Stenning James McGrath, The Naming of Adult Autism: Culture, Science, Identity. Rowman and Littlefield International 2019 [paperback version], 272 pages. ISBN 9781783480418 In an article for the Poetry Society, Joanna Limburg explained that her collection The Autistic Alice[1] approached the issue of what it meant to write as an autistic subject […]
Medicus: The Power of Knowledge—A Novel Approach to Medical History
Exhibition Review by Prof Desmond O’Neill, MD, FRCPI The closing of an innovative exhibition of medical history in the ancient German city of Speyer may seem to be a small loss in the context of the many enormous tragic losses of life and livelihood of Covid-19. However, medical history has insights to offer on how […]
Bandage, Sort and Hustle: Ambulance Crews on the Front Lines of Urban Suffering
Book Review by Christopher Bosley Josh Seim. Bandage, Sort, and Hustle: Ambulance Crews on the Front Lines of Urban Suffering. University of California Press, 2020. 272 pages. ISBN: 9780520300231 This book offers a stunning analysis of the Emergency Medical System (EMS), its frontline workers, and its patients. Seim concentrates on the ambulance as an […]
Indifference Kills
‘Colectiv’ directed by Alexander Nanau (Romania, Luxemburg 2019) ‘Colectiv’ opens the 24th edition of London Human Rights Watch Film Festival (LHRWFF) on 12 March 2020, https://ff.hrw.org/london Review by Khalid Ali, film and media correspondent ‘Medical Humanities’ online blogs In its 24th edition the London Human Rights Watch Film Festival (LFFHRW) comes back to the UK […]
“Normality is a Paved Road Comfortable to Walk But No Flowers Grow On It”
—Vincent Van Gogh ‘VOLARE’, Gabriele Salvatores (Italy, 2019) screening at the Italian Film Festival in London, Friday 6th March 2020 Film Review by Franco Ferrarini, gastroenterologist and film reviewer Vincent (Giulio Pranno), a sixteen-year-old boy affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), lives with his mother Elena (Valeria Golino) and her companion Mario (Diego Abatantuono) confined […]
‘Addio Infanzia’, Farewell Childhood
‘Magari’ (If only) directed by Ginevra Elkann (Italy 2019) opening the Italian Film Festival in London, 4th– 9th March 2020, www.institutfrancais.org.uk/cinema-italy Film Review by Khalid Ali, Film and media correspondent, Medical Humanities A seminal survey from the Italian Society of Paediatrics exploring the life style of more than 11,000 adolescents showed that ‘one in five […]
The Essence of Medicine
Oli Otya? (“Hello?”): Life and Loss in Rural Uganda, directed by Lucy Bruell (USA, 2019) Review by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York In the opening scenes of Oli Otya?, subtitles explain that a team of nurses from St. Francis Naggalama, a rural hospital in central Uganda, travels to outlying areas to treat […]