The psychologist, the psychoanalyst and the 'extraordinary child in postwar British science fiction
This article suggests that a much earlier trend is visible in British postwar science fiction texts, analysing a cluster of novels that emerged in the 1950s: Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End (1953), William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954) and John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos (1957). It will be argued that the groups of extraordinary children in these novels both tap into newer child-centred assertions about the threats posed by abnormal childhood, underwritten by psychology and psychoanalysis, and represent a reaction to an older progressive tradition in which children were envisaged as the single hope for a utopian...
Source: Medical Humanities - November 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Tisdall, L. Tags: Electronic pages - Science fiction and medical humanities Source Type: research
Veracious confabulations
A zone of comfort –the school of life– he had ditched, and a faculty of mind is his embraced notion. For he realized: Travelling through hills and dells of life, hearing echoes and seeing reflections; some learned, some innate others crafted and self-made. The red is pumped. The green is growing. The blue is deep. But you never know if your blue is like mine. A scheme to which we subscribe, quenching our aching need for cuts and contrast. The blood is red. The tree is green. The sea is blue. Yet all alive. And you never know if your blue is like mine. Then, he sailed across an ocean of emotions, and flew with h...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Mustafa, O. M. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Hourglass
The vein of hers is now occupied with a tunnel through which hope finds its way to defy the acrimony of the lingering war she has had to go through. Flooded with an acerbic stream that eradicates those malevolent who fled from the very place where this gory battle all started, but burns on the way innocents whose conviction as lively made them vulnerable. Few days...wiped out a year's worth of growth –the witness of difficult times she had to go through. To all of the groans and enervate breaths of hers in this mêlée; every day is a triumph. Every bit is cherished. Living free within confines; bed-bound ...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Mustafa, O. M. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
It's Just Old Age
standing in line, shivering sandwiching my aged figure with layers upon the calling of my name trudge with walking stick towards the counter miles away more ticks on the clock as my stubborn eyes open wide less as the technician assembles the nasty stuff from Dr. Lee's chicken script large indeed, that list – movie credits irritate me less as all is laid out on the countertop I am explained to with patience plenty garden, cook, vacuum could I without fret yet the simple thought, the finest speck of everyday brainpower could not dedicate itself to this task now not the least bit, not here nor there what was that hyper...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Lam, M. T. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Patients as story-tellers of healthcare journeys
This article extends the growing interest in narrative competence training for both practitioners and patients with the investigation of a story-telling model that could facilitate patients to narrate their experiences of healthcare systems. This model is derived from the literary arts. In fiction and autobiography, the journey arc of the central character is often one in which he or she is compelled to leave the comfort of everyday life and face a series of extraordinary events involving challenge and change which forces the character towards practical, intellectual, psychological and philosophical adjustments that define...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Lamprell, K., Braithwaite, J. Tags: Review essay Source Type: research
Exploring psychiatry through images and objects
Mental illnesses, unlike physical disorders, are widely thought of as unseen, or as ‘all in the mind’. Although psychiatry is not often thought of as a pictorial discipline, we describe how images and objects from the Ashmolean Museum have been used to encourage reflection on core clinical issues through an innovative teaching programme: ‘Exploring psychiatry through images and objects’. This forms part of the Ashmolean University Engagement Programme, which encourages use of the Museum's collections in teaching and research at Oxford across the full disciplinary range of the University. For doctors...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Allan, C. L., Turri, M. G., Stein, K., Da Silva, F. N., Harris, J. Tags: Educational case study Source Type: research
Quicksand
Nobody sees the quicksand.
I sense it beneath my feet
The path becomes unclear, outlook blurred
I stutter.
It laughs.
I gasp and I grasp
The shoulders and fingers of friends
Drag myself from its depths
Exhausted, defiant, alive.
I continue
Cautiously at first
But arrogance prevails, teases
‘I am stronger now, untouchable.’
Eternally unforgiving
One misstep, one lapse, one premature sigh
It waits, wills, hungry
Terrifying yet inviting
All consuming.
Competing interestsNone.
Provenance and peer reviewNot commissioned; internally peer reviewed. (Source: Medical Humanities)
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Murphy, K. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
Scholar spotlight on Dr Charlotte Blease and Prof Allan Peterkin
Scholar spotlight is a new feature in Medical Humanities which focuses on individuals and explores their careers and experiences in the field of medical humanities. Dr Charlotte Blease, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Medical Humanities, University of LeedsWhat is your current role and what are you working on at the moment? My current position is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Medical Humanities, Humanities Research Institute, University of Leeds. I am also Research Affiliate at the Program in Placebo Studies, Harvard Medical School. My research is currently focused on the role of the placebo effec...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Tags: Editorial Source Type: research
Navigating the medical humanities: my route
While health and illness have been the subjects of artistic exploration and scholarly thought since ancient times, the field of medical humanities is relatively young. Indeed, this journal was only founded at the turn of the 21st century. Many interested in, and contributing to, the broad field of medical humanities, are working in small groups or even alone. Although the health humanities community is broad and inclusive, it remains something of a minority pursuit in many university departments. Beyond the academy, clinicians, artists and practitioners are engaging with, and contributing to, the field in wide-ranging and ...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Bowman, D. Tags: Brief report Source Type: research
Medical performance and the 'inaccessible experience of illness: an exploratory study
We report a survey of audience members' responses (147 questionnaires collected at seven performances) and 10 in-depth interviews (five former patients and two family members, three medical practitioners) to bloodlines, a medical performance exploring the experience of haematopoietic stem-cell transplant as treatment for acute leukaemia. Performances took place in 2014 and 2015. The article argues that performances that are created through interdisciplinary collaboration can convey otherwise ‘inaccessible’ illness experiences in ways that audience members with personal experience recognise as familiar, and find...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Weitkamp, E., Mermikides, A. Tags: Open access Brief report Source Type: research
I and Thou: learning the 'human side of medicine
This essay is a reflection on the doctor–patient relationship from the perspective of two medical students, which draws on the ideas of 20th-century philosopher Martin Buber. Although Buber never wrote about medicine directly, his ‘philosophy of dialogue’ raises fundamental questions about how human beings relate to one another, and can thus offer valuable insights into the nature of the clinical encounter. We argue that Buber's basic word pairs, ‘I–You’ and ‘I–It’, provide a useful heuristic for understanding different modes of caring for patients, which we illustrate ...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Messinger, A., Chin-Yee, B. Tags: Brief report Source Type: research
Diet and disease: transgressing boundaries between science and society--understanding neglected diseases through the lens of cultural studies and anthropology
It is vital that we consider human health from all perspectives, including the social, geopolitical and cultural aspects of wider society. A prime example of how such forces complicate patterns of disease is provided by examining the underlying epidemiology of cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer (CCA)) in Thailand. With high prevalence in the northeast of Thailand (Isan) and most rural communities along the Mekong River in Southeast Asia, CCA in this region of the world results from a neglected tropical disease, chronic liver fluke infection, caused by consuming raw or undercooked freshwater fish infected with Opisthorchi...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Asavarut, P., Norsworthy, P. J., Cook, J., Taylor-Robinson, S. D., Harrison, R. V. Tags: Open access Editorial Source Type: research
'It's not the form; it's the process: a phenomenological study on the use of creative professional development workshops to improve teamwork and communication skills
Conclusions
Participation in the arts can be beneficial for the development of interpersonal skills such as teamwork and communication among health professionals. (Source: Medical Humanities)
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Acai, A., McQueen, S. A., Fahim, C., Wagner, N., McKinnon, V., Boston, J., Maxwell, C., Sonnadara, R. R. Tags: Original article Source Type: research
What is nature capable of? Evidence, ontology and speculative medical humanities
Expanding on the recent call for a ‘critical medical humanities’ to intervene in questions of the ontology of health, this article develops a what we call a ‘speculative’ orientation to such interventions in relation to some of the ontological commitments on which contemporary biomedical cultures rest. We argue that crucial to this task is an approach to ontology that treats it not as a question of first principles, but as a matter of the consequences of the images of nature that contemporary biomedical research practices espouse when they make claims to evidence, as well as the possible consequence...
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Savransky, M., Rosengarten, M. Tags: Editor's choice Original article Source Type: research
Osteoarthritis
the irresistible smile of the Sun
stands forth
seeping through into the chamber
must I not waste this treasure
taking small steps I reach for the hat
then snap!
without warning
the kneecap jumps the socket
impaling needles into the innocent flesh
motionless with a growing twinge
that knee becomes the most important matter
Arnold makes haste to fetch me the pills
down they go, at an inch per year
back to the rocking chair I return
but this time without rock
until the job is done
I am trapped
caged
locked
jailed
indoors
Competing interestsNone.
Provenance and peer reviewNot commissioned; internally peer reviewed. (Source: Medical Humanities)
Source: Medical Humanities - August 23, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Lam, M. T. Tags: Poetry and prose Source Type: research
