The master thief
His came from the inside.
One of his own turned.
Insidious at first
Subtle, and easy to disregard.
Unseen, it was stealing
Stealing balance
Stealing deglutition
Stealing memory
Forcing attention to its ravage
No longer able to ignore
It wanted
Everything.
But not a complaint was uttered
Not an angry word said
As energy dwindled
Movements labored
Independence abandoned
And the steadfast body could no longer be relied upon.
Stolen by the Master Thief.
Though It took so much
It could not win.
Courage –
the rarest kind.
Unfaltering.
The body. Succumbed.
The spirit. Im...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Bradley, J. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Ghosts of Company
The young barmaid held her gaze,
When he raised his mask,
To salute with mercurial gusto,
Heroes of the past.
Now he is laid down to rest,
Resolute and steadfast.
Amidst "the fearless",
His dearest left cursing his craft.
At dusk, fading from actuality,
Not the first,
Not the last,
All just ghosts of company,
Hiding themselves behind a glass.
Before an altar,
We must not falter,
For ‘tis He himself who laughs last.
Time. Gentlemen. Please!
My, oh my...
How it has passed.
Competing interestsNone.
Provenance and peer reviewNot commissioned; internally peer reviewed. (Source: Medical Humanities)
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: O'Sullivan, O. P. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Fears from a medical student part II: Prepping the patient
Veins replete with burning medicine, his eyes shiver shut. Is it quite the same to call this sleep? He's surrounded by masks, whispering and weaving, cleansing his arms, piercing taut skin. A catheter slithers into the anatomical pouch as the soft roar of razor denudes his abdomen. The tape recruits every last hair. Paintbrush to belly button, spreading orange chlorhexidine across the impact line. The man we know is gone, and in his place— nine square inches of skin framed by tape and sheets. The overhead lights turn on. "Time out!" All look up for a moment and nod, to show no wrong. To acknowledge the tissue that wa...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Prabhu, A. V., Kashkoush, A. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Towards a Medicine of the Invisible: bioethics and relationship in "The Little Prince"
The Little Prince is one of the most famous fables. In this paper, we attempt to look at three bioethical issues through the Little Prince's eyes: the end-of-life context, the patient–physician relationship and prevention/precaution. The fable gives us the basis for a perspective we have called ‘Medicine of the Invisible’, which is value-focused. The Little Prince suggests that we seek the invisible—the "thing that is important", the "matters of consequence", even on a gnoseological and epistemological level—as a new type of ‘clinical data’ which may help to make healthcare more et...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Colucci, M., Pegoraro, R. Tags: Original article Source Type: research
The remaining questions
you may ask about deformed structure: a white root onion bulb behind eyes, or boggy green-grape bulging under knuckles, or the green sprouts shooting from the carina, or the bifurcation of open-lung shaped as a bird's breastbone: sensual, white, snowy, open paths: the things that remind us of the first cut in surgery, or me of his legs apart in the evening; you may ask about the paper-mache of our environment mapped on the undressed body: a raspberry rash or the leaky shimmer of virus-vesicles nailed newly, painfully, on her back as new shingles for the roof of her chest; or the coracoid: the raven's beak and the writing d...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Jajarmi, Y. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Poor Little Butterfly
Poor little Butterfly with wings broken, asleep on the ground. Your life in the balance, so soon after leaving the cocoon. Poor little Butterfly, the cause of your illness hasn't been found. Let your hope not be squashed on this dark afternoon. Twenty of us, observe you asleep, at peace on the bed. Poor little Butterfly, your wings are clipped, no one knows why. Poor little Butterfly, you are so small compared to the tubes near your head. And now you will be caged in the grey indoors, not the blue sky. Your small broken body, cut by the knife. Wings so fragile, you wonder how in the wind they don't tear. It's funny, dear B...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: D'Costa, J. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
San Antonio Summer '64
...there are approximately 16,300 nuclear weaponslocated ...in 14 countries.Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2014
Rising on columns of fire,
rockets launched to the moon –
and I who'd wished
to work with astronauts,
am assigned instead
to weigh SAC bomber crew
immersed in water –
measure "lean body mass,"
wondered what difference
a paunch on a pilot would make
sitting in a B52.
Silent—
eyes hidden
behind red goggles,
they swaggered
in their muscled nakedness
into my lab.
Dark-adapted to their cockpits,
ready day or night, airborne
at the President's command –
fly over the pole, drop hydrogen b...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Bronson, R. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Styx and Sarcoma
From where I waited,
the River Styx looked like an ocean.
It stretched beyond the sandy banks where I stood,
weaving its way through rooms and hallways.
The water floated in air, like spirits do.
I knew it to be cold to the touch.
In that sea of white coats, I saw a pallium:
a black cloak draped over the ferryman.
Charon—his eyes warm and smile frail—
come to bring me home to a place of rest!
Alas, his boat drifted onward;
these timeworn eyes could not follow him for long.
But tomorrow, I will wait on these banks again—
till this coin is no longer in hand,
till these feet are no longer on sand.
Com...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Zaidi, D. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Peak and Trough
I am not at a steady state.
I fear my half-lives
are becoming cat lives.
(Perhaps I should have tried
veterinary school instead of allopathy.)
My classmates seem to have
peaks and troughs as I do,
measurements of
x and y axes of
varying names:
Sleep. Grade. Competence. Desperation.
But mine seem deeper
and wider.
I
feel
different.
Competing interestsNone.
Provenance and peer reviewNot commissioned; internally peer reviewed. (Source: Medical Humanities)
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: McLean, A. J. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Night Visiting
A wallowy wet night they called me in. ‘They want a doctor, only a doctor will do.' I take the back steps into the hospice, tiptoe past the dark. ‘The family are waiting.' I follow the nurse's translucent finger pointing the way. ‘I must see the patient first.' My voice tired, harsher than I'd hoped. Supine, slither of moon caught in the net curtain illuminates the beauty of skin. A morbid game, we count to ten between breaths. Slipping from the room, through treacle I walk to the designated family room. Séance like under the sickly glow of an energy saving light bulb, a chair awaits my all-knowing...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Strawson, D. J. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Initiation
Today I met her face to face
Her eyes were sullen, her mouth drooped.
My face unshaven, my hair undone.
Her tongue positioned to release the unspoken.
My forehead wrinkled, my brow creased.
Her complexion obscure, her teeth
Almost piercing her paper-thin lip.
A hyoid bone floating magically,
The neck's triangles precise, thyroid a butterfly,
Left lung poised for a handshake,
The aorta's pathway to Celiac, Mesenteric, Renal,
The legs, extensors and flexors, origins, insertions–
Beautiful the touch, the cut, the push, the pull—
If only he remembered the face.
Competing interestsNone.
Pr...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Samuels, A. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
A Glimpse of the Inevitable
Inundated with thick, puffy legs and coarse beards tinged with yellow, engulfing smiles exuding carefree air. She was immediately different. Her eyes wide with something unattainable by empathy, surrounded by people pretending to have it all together, just for her. The room brimming with false pretenses, balloons and smiles flirting with my vision until I take my first breath, filling my heart with the weight of the air. Words emerge, but my mind wanders, a defense mechanism of sorts. I stumble upon her mirror image: a bedside stuffed owl, preposterous given the backdrop, its eyes wide and expression gaping, casting wisdom...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Riemenschneider, K. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
The (re)-introduction of semiotics into medical education: on the works of Thure von Uexküll
Thure von Uexküll's reputation as a pioneer in biosemiotics and also in psychosomatic medicine is well documented. It is easy to see these disciplines reflected in his notable publications, both in English and in German. However, if one spares the time to filter through all of his articles, monographs, conference papers and editorials in English and in German, a notable gap arises in his English language publications: that of clinical education. This gap in the English language literature may seem unimportant in and of itself, but it speaks volumes when we consider the total absence of medical semiotics in the curr...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 21, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Tredinnick-Rowe, J. Tags: Original article Source Type: research
Doctors in space (ships): biomedical uncertainties and medical authority in imagined futures
This article redresses this gap. We analyse the evolving figure of ‘the doctor’ in different popular science fiction television series. Building upon debates within Medical Sociology, Cultural Studies and Media Studies we argue that the figure of ‘the doctor’ is discursively deployed to act as the moral compass at the centre of the programme narrative. Our analysis highlights that the qualities, norms and ethics represented by doctors in space (ships) are intertwined with issues of gender equality, speciesism and posthuman ethics. We explore the signifying practices and political articulations that ...
Source: Medical Humanities - November 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Henderson, L., Carter, S. Tags: Open access Science Fiction and Medical Humanities Source Type: research
The medical science fiction of James White: Inside and Outside Sector General
James White was a Northern Irish science fiction author working in the subgenre of medical science fiction from the mid-1950s to the end of the twentieth century. The aim of this article is to introduce White to scholars working in the medical humanities, pointing to features of interest and critiquing the more excessive utopian impulses of the author. The article covers White's Sector General series, set on a vast intergalactic hospital, as well as the author's standalone fictions. (Source: Medical Humanities)
Source: Medical Humanities - November 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Howard, R. Tags: Science Fiction and Medical Humanities Source Type: research
