Medical Humanities

Classics for ethics?

2012-01-21T09:48:00.004Z

I’ve been invited to deliver a masterclass in using classical literature to teach ethics at the Institute of Medical Ethics Conference next month. I’m really looking forward to it, not least because three former students are up for the Mark Brenner prize for creative approaches to ethical issues in clinical attachments. Good luck Matt, Rory and Rebecca.

Classical literature for narrative source material for ethics, as distinct from contemporary literature, has made me think about the characteristics of classics. For a novel or short story to be considered a classic, it has to have withstood the rigours of time and competition. Its themes, characters and/or plot have a value that transcends period and place, making it worthy of our attention – and still relevant -- many years after it was penned. Classics are paradigmatic. They are touchstones for cultural excellence. But does their status mean we come to them with a less open mind about the moral stances they might advocate?

Reading a classic absolves the reader of the judging whether something is ‘good literature’ or not. That decision has already been made collectively for us by cultural consensus, aided and abetted by those who decide school syllabuses, write textbooks or are editors for publishers’ ‘Classics’ series. I find that I approach the reading of a classic with a different mindset to when I read contemporary literature. When a text is taken for granted as ‘good’, I feel an obligation as reader to ‘be improved’ by my reading. I must seek out what has been deemed good about a text and be appropriately appreciative. Happily, this is rarely onerous. With the possible exception of Ulysses, I have enjoyed reading the canonical texts in medical humanities: Middlemarch, Madame Bovary, Magic Mountain… (is there a correlation between titles starting with ‘M’ and classic status?).

Writing in the introduction to the excellent book Stories and their Limits, Nelson says that ethics took a ‘personal turn’ in the 1980s away from the impartialist approach (with its emphasis on universalism) to focus instead on the value of moral significance of individual relationships (love, friendship, community). Might the ‘classic’ status of a text imply a framework of universalism that sets it at odds with the preoccupations of the personal that are intrinsic to narrative ethics? Do classics already have a presupposed strong moral force that is inescapable for the reader? It is well known that we practise ‘confirmation bias’ in that we tend to favour stances that support positions that we are already committed to. If a narrative has attained classic status, it might well be because it tells us a story that conforms to a collective sense of morality. Can we then be sufficiently critically available enough to really open up a text to moral investigation? After all, as John Arras writes in his sardonically entitled chapter ‘Nice story, so what?’ (Stories and their Limits), ‘Ethics without judgment is not ethics.’

A counter-argument would be that classics are often provocative rather than complacent in their moral stances. The moral ambiguity in the writings of Shakespeare, Kafka, Shelley, Tolstoy, Chekhov and many of the other ‘greats’ is what helps to elevate their texts to ‘classic’ status. It contributes to why they are still amenable to seemingly inexhaustible analysis, in spite of all the intervening years of scholarship and debate.

Does a certifiably good story intrinsically have a moral dimension? The French literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve certainly thought so. He wrote in 1850: “A true classic, as I should like to hear it defined, is an author who has enriched the human mind, increased its treasure, and caused it to advance a step; who has discovered some moral and not equivocal truth” (my emphasis). I think it is almost always possible to find a moral dimension in classic texts that have a medical motif. If ethical issues do not suggest themselves in the plot or character, there may be discussion points around the relationship of the author to matters medical, or about how medicine is represented as a profession. One of the advantages of studying classics is that it demands a consideration of context. It compels us to put aside current legal frameworks and norms, and really think about how morality is narratively shaped.

Medfest 2012

2012-01-18T14:38:00.002Z

News of a wonderful medically themed film festival touring the UK. This is the second year of the festival which aims to provoke debate on the ethics and politics of doctors on film. This year's theme is 'HealthScreen - understanding illness through film'. The first event is at Birmingham University on 7 February with 15 further events at medical schools around the UK. Education films, health information films and mainstream Hollywood movies will all be considered. Each event is free with no ticket required. Entry is on a first-come basis. More details here.

Blog redesign

2012-01-15T17:41:00.002Z

When this blog was started some eight years ago, it was envisaged as a place where students from the Imperial College Medical Humanities course could share their writing and any medical humanities activities. This worked well for many years, but since then, the websphere has changed, as has the nature of medical education. An explosion in social media means that students no longer need a formal space in which to showcase their writing. Many have blogs of their own or rely on Facebook to raise their profile. Also students have such full timetables that it is unrealistic to expect long-term commitments to writing for a group blog. So, whilst I still envisage inviting posts from students and others associated with the course at Imperial, I'm going to take ownership of the blog and try to write more myself. I'm pretty sure this was the first blog devoted to medical humanities, and it's been nice to see other groups set up their own blogs to tell us about their activities. I'll be posting links to UK medical humanities conferences and events, so please let me know if you would like anything included. I won't be adding or accepting sponsored links. I'm in the process of updating the blog roll, so will be accepting suggestions for relevant sites.

Comics & Medicine: Navigating the Margins

2012-01-15T12:46:00.004Z

22-24 July 2012
Toronto, Canada

Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto Biomedical Communications Program, University of Toronto, Office of the Vice-Principal, Research, University of Toronto, Mississauga

The third international interdisciplinary conference* on comics and medicine will continue to explore the intersection of sequential visual arts and medicine. This year we will highlight perspectives that are often under-represented in graphic narratives, such as depictions of the Outsider or Other in the context of issues such as barriers to healthcare, the stigma of mental illness and disability, and the silent burden of caretaking.

The conference will feature keynote presentations by comics creators Joyce Brabner and Joyce Farmer. Brabner, a comics artist and social activist, collaborated with her late husband Harvey Pekar on the graphic novel Our Cancer Year (1994), which won a Harvey Award for best graphic novel. Farmer is a veteran of the underground comics scene who nursed her elderly parents through dementia and decline as shown in her graphic memoir Special Exits (2010), which won the National Cartoonists Society award for graphic novels.

We invite proposals for scholarly papers (20 minutes) or panel discussions (60 minutes) focusing on medicine and comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels, comic strips, graphic pathographies, manga, and/or web comics). In particular, we seek presentations on the following— and related—topics:

• Graphic pathographies of illness and disability
• The use of comics in medical education
• The use of comics in patient care
• Depictions of the illness experience from the perspective of loved ones and family caregivers
• The interface of graphic medicine and other visual arts in popular culture
• Ethical implications of using comics to educate the public
• Ethical implications of patient representation in comics by healthcare providers
• Trends in international use of comics in healthcare settings
• The role of comics in provider/patient communication
• Comics as virtual support groups for patients and caregivers
• The use of comics in bioethics discussions and education

We also welcome workshops (120 minutes) by creators of comics on the process, rationale, methods, and general theories behind the use of comics to explore medical themes. These are intended to be “hands-on” interactive workshops for participants who wish to obtain particular
skills with regard to the creation or teaching about comics in the medical context.

We envision this gathering as a collaboration among humanities scholars, comics scholars, comics creators, healthcare professionals, and comics enthusiasts.

300-word proposals should be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2012 to
submissions@graphicmedicine.org.

Proposals may be in Word, PDF, or RTF formats with the following
information in this order:
• author(s)
• affiliation
• email address
• title of abstract
• body of abstract

Please identify your presentation preference:
• oral presentation
• panel discussion
• workshop

While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice of presentation format, we will attempt to honor people’s preferences, and we will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by 14 March 2012.

Please note: Presenters are responsible for session expenses (e.g. handouts) and personal expenses (travel, hotel, and meeting registration fees). All presenters must register for at least the day on which they are scheduled to present.

More info & updates at graphicmedicine.wordpress.com

*Information about the 2010 conference, “Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels,” in London, England, and the 2011 conference, “Comics and Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness,” in Chicago, Illinois, USA, can be found at http://www.blogger.com/www.graphicmedicine.org.

Iris

2011-05-09T19:35:00.003+01:00

You are warmly invited to the opening reception on Tuesday 17 May of 'Iris', a celebration of art by this year's Medical Humanities students. The reception starts at 7 pm. The exhibition is in the Blyth Gallery, Sherfield Building, Level 5 of the South Kensington campus of Imperial College London. All welcome.

Centre for Medical Humanities at Durham

2011-04-26T12:00:00.002+01:00

The Centre for Medical Humanities at Durham University has a great blog, giving notice of medical humanities events but also offering reflections on the relationship between medicine and broader concepts of health.

Off Sick project

2011-03-07T19:10:00.003Z

Posted on behalf of Dr Richard Marsden:

Scholars from the universities of Glamorgan and Cardiff are currently breaking new ground in the Medical Humanities with the Off Sick project. This research initiative, led by Dr Martin Willis and Dr Keir Waddington, puts a new twist on the well-known concept of the ‘illness narrative’. It focuses not on the people who actually suffer from illness, but instead on those who support and care for them. In this vein the project team is currently gathering stories from carers across the South Wales area.

This is very much an interdisciplinary project, which aims to explore not only how carers construct and define their experiences through stories in the present day, but also how they did so in previous decades and centuries. Moreover, Off Sick also brings in comparative material from the literary sphere, including fictional accounts, life-writing and poetry.

The peg on which this work is hung is the encounter with ‘medical institutions’. Indeed, the very idea of the illness narrative arose partly in response to a tendency for clinicians to neglect the experiences of the patient, seeing them instead in de-personalized terms as biological problems to be solved with science. Illness narratives are often perceived as a means of reversing this trend and re-empowering the patient.

For that reason, the stories that Off Sick is particularly interested in deal with visits to hospitals and other clinical settings. However, it is the ways in which carers and family members turn their experiences of such encounters into narratives that is the real crux of this research. This emphasis on the stories of those around illness, together with its holistic and comparative approach to contemporary, historical and literary materials, is what makes Off Sick so innovative.

The project’s findings will be showcased through academic presentations and publications, and also through an exhibition (scheduled for June 2011) which is aimed not at academics but at individuals and groups whose lives have been affected by illness and who have their own stories to tell about it. In addition, Off Sick runs a lively, varied and ongoing programme of events and public talks drawing on the expertise of literary scholars, historians, social scientists and medical practitioners.

For more information on the project you can visit the Off Sick website, join the Off Sick Facebook group or follow Off Sick on Twitter. Alternatively please contact the project’s Research Assistant, Dr Richard Marsden, on rmarsden@glam.ac.uk.

Not so Black and White

2011-03-07T18:34:00.009Z

Are psychotic disorders accurately portrayed to the public through popular media? Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” presents a ballerina’s descent into schizophrenia, caused by the pressure and competitive environment of her home and production company.

Nina (played by Natalie Portman) is cast as the Swan Queen in a production of Swan Lake in spite of initial trepidation that she would be unable to fulfil the unrestricted and carpe diem nature of the Black Swan. Swan Lake has the Black and White Swans; characters that are polar opposites from one another, and Nina’s state of mind is presented in relation to the character she dons at any particular time. Is this providing a too clear cut definition of the disorder? Schizophrenia is medically described as a progressive disorder, where as well as the white and black, there is a grey area where the disorder is not in full effect.

This grey area is not presented as much in the film, because the focus is on the Black and White Swans only. The clear cut definition is emphasised by scenes in the artist director’s flat in the film, where the entire room and all furniture is either black or white, with no other contrast given. The artist director himself, when describing the premise of Swan Lake, is reflected in a mirror as having two heads, suggesting a split personality of the oncoming mental disorder. A staging of disease progression is not acknowledged either during the film, and this could possibly lead to a misconception that schizophrenia is a disorder that is either fully present or completely absent.

Initially Nina is a very introvert, quiet character, embodying the White Swan’s innocence perfectly. The loss of inhibition and ability to cast of all shackles coincides with her metamorphosis into the Black Swan and the onset of her psychotic episodes. Whilst disinhibition is a schizophrenic episode, it is not the only likely path. Just as likely are negative symptoms, such as blunted emotions, a complete loss of pleasure and other functional disabilities. These are not touched on in the film, but are still severe symptoms of the disorder.

Overall, however, the film is extremely well made; a provocative and thrilling watch and I would recommend it without a moment’s hesitation. The feeling that the disorder could have been dealt with in a better way lingers, but does not diminish the final product.

John Stezaker and the Medical Profession

2011-03-05T22:21:00.013Z

British artist John Stezaker takes portraits and various landscapes and questions conventional understanding of lines and flow. He creates collages of seemingly contrasting pictures into curious, coherent and captivating images, in this exhibition of various collections of his artwork. A few of us from the medical humanities course attended his exhibition held at Whitechapel Gallery (on till 18Mar11). This blog posting is an analysis of some of the images and their possible interpretations applicable to the medical profession.

Stezaker is perhaps best known for his Mask series which fuses celebrity portraits with landscapes and makes the stones and trees do the talking instead of eyes and mouths. A side-profile picture of a man and woman close to kissing have the fronts of their faces replaced by a picture of a gorge, one with straight edges, perhaps signifying no intimate connection actually exists. The same picture is then collaged with a gorge with overhanging trees and shrubs, hinting the possibility of growing into each other and a mingling of personalities, physical touch or mental connection. Such concepts could be applied to the changing nature of the doctor-patient relationship. The traditional lab-coat-wearing doctor with the paternalistic attitude is reminiscent of the straight-cut gorge. But this is slowly being replaced by the down-to-earth, rapport-building, patient-centred attitude, more similar to the image with the mingling of tree branches and shrubs between the gorges. In the words of Anatole Broyard, “How can a doctor presume to cure a patient if he knows nothing about his soul, his personality, his character disorders? It’s all part of it.”

The smaller series entitled Fall, fuses naked frontal and back photos, split along the length of the body, of man and woman. The uncanny similarities between both male and female body shape and lines flow almost seamlessly into each other (discounting the obvious cut down the middle of the image), but the intriguing part is the question of the purpose of the title. Perhaps the artist is hinting at sexual ambiguity and promiscuousity being the fall of mankind. However, such practices have been the talk of the town even in ancient biblical days of sex-shrines and sex-based religions, and despite fear of being taken out of context, the androgyny or fertility practices of Deuteronomy 22:5 "A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing." Doctors are required to be thorough and probe into the sexual history of patients without being judgemental. Yet such topics are never taught sufficiently in medical school.

In his Marriage series, Stezaker joins cut portraits of different celebrities, either male-female, male-male or female-female, joining certain important lines to create on first glance almost schizophrenic images. Some of these were immediately visually appealing, but my eye took a little longer to adjust and consider the beauty of others. The brilliance of this series is probably in the way he makes some important facial landmarks meet so that it still retains a certain flow within the images, yet throwing out the rule that symmetry is intrinsically more appealing. Some of these portraits resemble burns victims I have seen in hospitals, due to the asymmetry of the faces and heavy wrinkles on one side but young smooth skin on the other.

Others combine "masculine" and "feminine" features, blurring the line between what we perceive as male and female. Again this may signify social stereotyping and draw attention to our own assumptions about others. Skin and especially facial irregularities are the subject of discrimination, ostracisation and bullying, resulting in self-esteem and massive psychological issues, to the extent of the desire or requirement of cosmetic, reconstructive or other surgery or medical intervention. However, it is arguable if surgical or medical intervention really do address such issues sufficiently, since it seldom gets to the root of such problems. Mostly, doctors tend to shy away from attempting to address the emotional/psychological/spiritual root of such problems, either because it takes too much energy and time, because we prefer to maintain an exclusively "professional" relationship, or because we are not taught and are under-developed in dealing with such issues. From this series of images, perhaps we can learn to appreciate unconventional beauty in our everyday practices and contact with patients, without which it is difficult to genuinely care for our patients.

More curious was the series Tabula Rasa. This is the theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and knowledge comes from experience and perception, in a sense, the age-old nurture versus nature debate. In this series, polygonal shapes are cut out of pictures; in a picture with a man talking to another two, the heads of the two people are cut out in the polygonal shape, likewise with a picture of a man talking to a woman. The obvious suggestion is the concept of a clean slate when meeting another person, which is analogous in a medical context to every new consultation and patient. Without any details of the entire heads of these people in the pictures, the viewer is left to perceive the faces of these people, as if making heavy use of Gestalt's theories of perception, a psychological concept of visual recognition and interpretation. Too often, medical professionals have preconceptions of patients based on what they look like when they first step into the consultation room. These often then colour our perception of the cultural and societal status of the said patient, and alters the way we think of differential diagnoses, or in private healthcare systems, whether they are even offered more expensive drugs and therapies (I'm drawing this on friends' experiences in other countries). To take patient-centred care seriously then, we should perhaps train ourselves to rely less on visual judgement of people, favouring a more "tabula rasa" approach to patient contact and the doctor-patient relationship. Only then can we start to attempt to actually be non-judgemental and compassionate doctors.

Stezaker's collection in the Whitechapel Gallery challenges our perceptions of beauty and judgements of others, and its concepts may extend well into the medical sphere. There were plenty of ideas and interpretations within the group of medical students who went to the exhibition, and these are just a selection of some of them (mostly my own interpretation and experience).

*All pictures copyright of John Stezaker. Used here only as example illustration.*

Health, Illness and Ethnicity conference

2011-02-17T09:28:00.002Z

Two-day Conference: ‘Health, Illness and Ethnicity: Migration, Discrimination and Social Dislocation’

Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, University College Dublin, 10-11 June 2011

Organisers Catherine Cox (University College Dublin), Hilary Marland (University of Warwick) and Sarah York (University College Dublin and University of Warwick).

This two-day Wellcome Trust funded conference will focus on the relationship between illness and migration, discrimination and social dislocation. By migration, we refer to both migration between countries and internal movements of populations, for example between regions or from rural to urban areas. Our focus is primarily on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but we are also interested in exploring the relationship between historical concerns surrounding health and ethnicity and current health practice and policy. The workshop is intended to contribute to debates on the susceptibility of specific groups to medical interventions, as well as interpretations of the relationship between health and illness, migration and ethnicity, and the management of the health and illness of ethnic groups within broader health and welfare strategies. The workshop will explore the experiences of particular groups, be these ‘foreigners’, migratory peoples, patients of varied religious denominations and those suffering from particular disorders or diseases. Participants will include keynote speaker Alison Bashford, Roberta Bivins, Kat Foxhall, Alan Ingram and John Welshman. The conference will also provide the organisers with an opportunity to present on their project on ‘Madness, Migration and the Irish in Lancashire, c.1850-1921’ (funded by the Wellcome Trust). We are keen to involve a mix of early career and established scholars, historians and academics from a broad range of disciplines, policy makers and practitioners in the conference.

We request that titles and abstracts for the conference be submitted by 1 March 2011. Abstracts should be c 500 words and include a title and summary of the paper, as well as details of the address, email and telephone numbers of the speaker(s). The workshop will be held at University College Dublin. Local costs for hotel accommodation (2 nights) and meals will be covered by the organisers, but we ask participants, where possible, to cover the costs of their travel to Dublin drawing on their own institutional resources. Modest funds may be available to cover the travel costs of speakers lacking institutional support.

Please contact either Catherine Cox or Sarah York for further information.

Comics & Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness

2010-12-13T21:02:00.004Z

Comics & Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness conference

9-11 June 2011
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, Illinois

This second international interdisciplinary conference* aims to explore the past, present, and possible future of comics in the context of the healthcare experience. Programs in medical humanities have long touted the benefits of reading literature and studying visual art in the medical setting, but the use of comics in healthcare practice and education is relatively new. The melding of text and image has much to offer all members of the healthcare team, including patients and families. As such, a subgenre of graphic narrative known as graphic medicine is emerging as a field of interest to both scholars and creators of comics.

We are pleased to confirm two important keynote speakers: David Small, author of 'Stitches' and Phoebe Gloeckner, author of 'A Child's Life'.

We invite proposals for scholarly papers (15 minutes), poster presentations, and panel discussions (60 minutes), focused on medicine and comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels, comic strips, graphic pathographies, manga, and/or web comics) on the following—and
related—topics:

graphic pathographies of illness and disability
the use of comics in medical education
the use of comics in patient care
the interface of graphic medicine and other visual arts in popular culture
ethical implications for using comics to educate the public
ethical implications of patient representation in comics by
healthcare providers
trends in international use of comics in healthcare settings
the role of comics in provider/patient communication
comics as a virtual support group for patients and caregivers
the use of comics in bioethics discussions and education

We also welcome workshops (120 minutes) by creators of comics on the process, rationale, methods, and general theories behind the use of comics to explore medical themes. These are intended to be “hands-on” interactive workshops for participants who wish to obtain particular
skills with regard to the creation or teaching about comics in the medical context.

We envision this gathering as a collaboration among humanities scholars, comics scholars, comics creators, healthcare professionals, and comics enthusiasts.

300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2011 to submissions@graphicmedicine.org. Proposals may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract. Please identify your presentation preference: 1) oral presentation; 2) poster presentation; 3) panel discussion; or 4) workshop. While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice, we will attempt to honor people’s preferences,
and we will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by 14 March 2011.

This event is co-sponsored by the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the Department of Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine, and the Science, Technology and Society Program of Penn State University, and
is supported by a grant from the Charles Schulz Foundation.

*Information about the 2010 conference, “Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels,” in London, England can be found at www.graphicmedicine.org.

Poetry in spam

2010-11-23T17:13:00.003Z

As spam detection for blogs gets more sophisticated, some companies have taken to employing individuals to write realistic looking comments on blog postings, with a link to their business, embedded in it somewhere. I spend more time deleting spam than writing postings. But a spam comment cropped up this week which I feel qualifies as 'found poetry'. The formatting is mine, but the words are attributable to one Rizwan Ali, whom I hope is earning a living wage (or should that be 'learning a waving age') from the essay mill that employs him. I particularly like the 'endearing play' (which Wit undoubtedly is).

Medical conference mash-up

The conference will be supported by a rumor
at the British Museum in the fields
of the humanities and medicine, which explore
representations of, and the American TV
drama based on the Pulitzer Prize-endearing play
by Margaret Edson,
directed by Nike Nichols and
the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Medical Deanery.

It takes part over two living –
Saturday and Sunday 2nd-3rd July 2011.
Refreshmeents and lunches are welcome.

The conference is the answer
of three speakers are provided,
and there will be followed
in the daylight
by an exhibition, which will contain
books, tune, and visual art,
which explore any feature of
communication,
style,
narrative, and
representation
in relative to

illness and sorrow.

Sew intriguing

2010-11-03T18:44:00.003Z

The artist Andrea Dezsö's artworks are just gorgeous. You can see more of her work here. The series of embroided 'homilies' from the series 'Lessons from my mother' are hard hitting.

Doctors in literature

2010-11-03T18:30:00.003Z

Thanks to my friend Anna Nyberg for pointing out this wonderful page of 'The Doctor is in... Literature' titles on AbeBooks. I've only read one of the 'Evil doctors' books (Jekyll and Hyde), but I have read all but two of the 'Good doctors' books. I guess that makes me an optimist.

It takes an embryologist...

2010-11-03T18:21:00.003Z

Fascinating article on CultureLab about how an embryologist has identified the symbols on Danaë's cloak in Klimt's iconic painting as blastocysts -- early embryo forms. The symbolism is apt as the legend of Danaë has it that she was locked away from men by her father, but Zeus disguised himself as a river of golden coins, thus managing to impregnate her. Scott Gilbert, who proferred the new interpretation, found that Klimt often attended gatherings in Vienna, to which an eclectic mix of artists and scientists was invited. More details here.

Hippocrates Prize and 2nd International Symposium in Poetry and Medicine

2010-10-26T17:58:00.004+01:00

The Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, is now accepting applications for the 2011 entry and invites both national and international submissions. I attended the one-day symposium and prizegiving last year and it was a real treat. The talks were very varied and it was a delight to hear the prizewinners read their poems. Next year's symposium is scheduled for 7 May 2011. More details here.

New blog, and help save the workhouse!

2010-10-26T17:42:00.004+01:00

The Centre for Humanities and Health at King's College London has a new blog which has a number of posts on Medical Humanities related topics, contributed by staff and students at the Centre. Of particular note is the campaign by historian Ruth Richardson to save the Strand Union Workhouse. There is more information about the workhouse, and a chance to sign a petition to save it from redevelopment as office space, at the website http://www.workhouses.org/. Do get involved -- this is an important part of London's medical and architectural history. There is also a Facebook campaign underway here.

The Language of Illness and Pain conference

2010-10-17T13:42:00.001+01:00

The Language of Illness and Pain
Identity, Communication and the Clinical Encounter

Date: Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd July 2011
Venue: Birkbeck College, University of London

Following the establishment of the British medical profession in the nineteenth century, which endorsed the concept of medicine as a science, the clinical encounter between doctor and patient came to occupy a contested territory with equally contested boundaries. The period saw a theoretical and practical shift away from the classical perception of medicine as an art, based on the patient’s story of his or her illness, to medicine as a science, based on the doctor’s clinical observations and supported by the rapid increase in technical training and new scientific procedures.

Arguably the effect of this development was to suppress the patient’s identity and voice. It also sidelined psychologically-driven theories, which were thought to lack evidence-based scientific rigour and were regarded as inferior to biomedical practice. As a result, conditions and identities associated with the troubled mind and with anti-social behaviours, for example, were pathologised to bring them into the province of orthodox treatments. The cure rate for the new taxonomies of stigmatised identities and psychosomatic conditions was disappointing. Moreover there was considerable confusion at the interface between the disciplines of law, medicine, psychology, and social science in relation to distinctions between normal behaviour and deviancy, between the criminal and the patient, and between the mad and the bad.

This interdisciplinary conference seeks to examine the legacy of these trends through the analysis of communication and language in the clinical encounter, as it is represented today in medicine and in the humanities. The objective is to break down the artificial boundaries between the arts and biomedical science to identify mutually beneficial fields of enquiry. In particular the conference aims to establish a forum in which academics, practitioners and students in the medical profession and in humanities can interrogate and evaluate the clinical encounter, the relationship between doctor and patient, and the language of illness and pain. The intention is to publish a collection of the best conference papers in a medical humanities book that will be of interest to the general reader but which can also be used by students and academics in teaching and research.

The conference is the result of the collaboration between Medical Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London and the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Medical Deanery. It takes part over two days – Saturday and Sunday 2nd-3rd July 2011. Refreshments and lunches are provided and there will be a wine reception on Saturday, followed by a screening of Wit, the American TV drama based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Margaret Edson, directed by Nike Nichols and starring Emma Thompson. Formal presentations end at lunchtime on Sunday and will be followed in the afternoon by a talk at the British Museum in the Wellcome Trust-sponsored Living and Dying Room.

The conference will be supported by an exhibition, which will include books, music, and visual art, which explore representations of, and the creative interaction between medicine and the humanities throughout the ages.

CFP: We invite proposals (300 words max) for 20-minute papers from academics and practitioners in the fields of the humanities and medicine, which explore any aspect of communication, language, narrative, and representation in relation to illness and pain. Proposals for panels of three speakers are welcome.

The following list of ideas is intended as a guideline only:

Altered mental states
Collective illness, collective healing
Cultural perceptions of illness: gender, class, and ethnicity
Cure or healing?
Difference, otherness and pathologised identity
Identity and the 12-step programme
Illness, language and writing
Illness as metaphor
Illness and creativity / genius and madness
It’s all in the mind
Medicine and anthropology
Medicine and music
Medicine and place: exteriors and interiors
Medicine and ritual
Medicine and visual culture
Narrative medicine and the clinical encounter
Narrative, identity and psychoanalysis
Narrative and the case history
The art of dying
The fictional doctor and patient
The medical autobiography / memoir
The Illness memoir
The language of pain
The language and lure of ‘Bad Science’
The poetry of pain
Symbolic medicine: the staff of Asklepios and the caduceus of Hermes
Trauma and language
Western biomedicine and trans-cultural practices
Who owns the illness?

Format: Given the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, we would like papers to be accessible to all participants. If your proposal is accepted we will ask you to provide a short handout in advance of the conference, which includes an abstract that sets out your key arguments followed by brief definitions of terminology.

CPD points for clinicians: Given the contribution the conference will make to clinical practice, CPD credits may be claimed under your individual College guidelines.

The deadline for proposals is Friday 17th December. Please contact Debbie Harrison (d.harrison@bbk.ac.uk) and Jo Winning (j.winning@bbk.ac.uk). We would be delighted to discuss your ideas informally in advance. The website (http://www.bbk.ac.uk/eh/research/research_conferences/language_illness_pain) will be updated regularly to provide further information about plenary speakers, accommodation options, parking arrangements etc. Birkbeck's facilities include wheelchair access.

Birkbeck MA in Medical Humanities open evening

2010-10-04T18:56:00.002+01:00

The MA Medical Humanities at Birkbeck is having an Open Evening on Tuesday 19th October 2010, 6-7pm.

The course explores ‘the art of medicine’ and how it can improve patient care. This new, two-year, part-time Master’s degree allows reflection on and development ofdaily clinical practice, through a deeper understanding of the Humanities – art, literature, music, myth and culture.

Taught by Birkbeck Faculty and KSS Deanery’s senior educational and clinical staff, the MA draws together the emergent fields of Medical Humanities and Intercultural Medicine, to explore and develop the lived experience of clinicians, in the everyday complexities of real-life clinical settings, as they interact with patients and cultures.

The course offers rich insights of the Humanities about culture, the body and what it means to be human, and find ways to integrate these with medical science, to develop a richer understanding of clinical practice. As part of this engagement, students will have the opportunity to explore non-Western models of medical practice, and to consider how far they complement biomedicine, from the points of view of cultures, patients, and practitioners. Students will acquire and refine skills in verbal and written communication, as well as research and critical analysis.

The unique link between Birkbeck and KSS Deanery means that this programme combines world-class research-led Humanities teaching with an established understanding of the real-life experience of clinical practice and patient care. Our location in Bloomsbury offers excellent access to all the major research libraries in London, including Senate House Library, the British Library and the Wellcome Collection.

People can learn more about this exciting new development in medical education, meeting teaching staff who will talk about the programme and explain the application process, by coming to the Open Evening to be held at Birkbeck College, room 541 (Birkbeck Main Building), Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX.

For more information about the course, and about Birkbeck, visit: www.bbk.ac.uk. Alternatively you are welcome to contact the Admissions tutor, Dr Jo Winning.

After Shock conference

2010-10-04T18:48:00.003+01:00

The Maine Humanities Council in the States are hosting a conference on 12-13 November 2010. It's aimed at health care professionals and focuses on ways that the humanities can help them better understand the long term effects of trauma of all kinds on their patients, and on themselves. There will be storytelling, theatre performances, reading & discussing literature, discussion of film, graphic novels, and writing represented in the workshops and plenary sessions.

Sounds fabulous, wish I could go. More details here.

Hospital linen reimagined

2010-10-04T18:42:00.002+01:00

Sara Hendren is thinking innovately and alliteratively about hospital linen.

Necromance

2010-06-30T16:17:00.003+01:00

The degree show at the Royal College of Art is always a fascinating insight into imagination-made-tangible. I was intrigued by Lauren Dutton's architectural project envisaging supplying body parts for donation whist providing a substitute mourning site, using memento mori grown from cell cultures. The out-of-body aspect, emphasis on ritual, and the stunning graphics all combine to suggest 'gothic Avatar'.

Also at the show was a project by Alison Thomson called 'The Chronic Facility' which uses food as metaphors for diseases and symptoms. A lot of Alison's work is medically related and deals with ameliorating unpleasant experiences. Her website has details of these projects.

Picturing the dead

2010-06-30T13:55:00.006+01:00

As part of a new specialist course called 'Death, autopsy and the law' for fourth-year medical students at Imperial College London, I'm thinking about a session on the representation of death in Western culture.

Daphne Todd's 'Last Portrait of Mother' has just controversially won the BP Portrait Award. The artist spent three days painting her mother after her death. In a very candid interview with the Evening Standard she revealed that members of her family were upset by the painting. For me, the portrait's fascination lies in the tension between the shock of the 'ruined body' and the intimacy of the portrait. There is a very good piece on deathbed portraits by Jonathan Jones here.

Sally Mann's new exhibition at the Photographers' Gallery is also pertinent to this theme. Photography is often characterised as being 'click and go', but Mann uses an antique camera that requires a long exposure time. Her large-scale prints are using gelatin silver, give them a highly atmospheric, 'memento mori' feel.

The exhibition, called 'The Family and the Land', includes photographs from the series 'What Remains'. These are photographs of bodies decomposing in the open air at a research facility in Tennessee where the process of decay is studied. (The 'Body Farm' is well known through Patricia Cornwell's novel of the same name, and there is also a series of Body Farm thrillers by Jefferson Bass.) I was lucky enough to see the exhibition in the company of ethicist Wing May Kong, and our reactions to the 'disturbingness' of individual photographs were very different -- tempered, no doubt, by our different experiences with corpses. Wing May has direct experience of dissection, whereas my frame of reference is mainly cultural.

Both Todd and Mann are artists who feel that we ought to be more upfront about the reality of the dead body. Although there are so many representations of death on our TV screens and in films, it is telling that these artworks still have the power to shock.

Good/bad literary doctors

2010-06-21T20:00:00.002+01:00

John Mullan of the Guardian has put up a list of the Ten of the Best Good Doctors in literature and Ten of the Best Bad Doctors. Decent lists, both, although one inevitably can think of additional deserving characters. I found it easier to think of 'bad doctors' than good, although maybe because central characters tend to be more interesting if they have a 'moral flaw' which gets in the way of good patient care. It might be a good intellectual work-out to think of equivalent lists for film and TV. But tricky... Is 'House' a good or bad doctor? William Hurt's character in 'The Doctor'? Bad at the beginning, good by the end.

Comics and Medicine conference

2010-06-21T19:08:00.005+01:00

The Comics and Medicine conference last Thursday was wonderful! It was an example of a truly interdisciplinary conference, with authors, educators, researchers and commentators all represented and contributing to a very inspiring day. Delegates came from all over the world to share their expertise. It really did feel like the inception of an important new movement in medical narrative. The conference programme is here. All the talks were very worthwhile. It was particularly thrilling to meet the lovely Brian Fies, author of Mom's Cancer which has become a classic in the genre of autobiographical comics.

For the interested but ignorant, like me, Paul Gravett provided a very useful survey of the field, putting key titles in context. His comprehensive, cross-genre website is well worth visiting. For specifically medical comics, Ian Williams's website Graphic Medicine is a treasure trove of titles.

Whilst there are many patient-authored comics, ones by doctors and other health professionals are still relatively rare. GP Thom Ferris has a witty webcomic called Fear of Failure featuring Dr Lois Pritchard. I particularly like the narrative style of Thom's work: multiple smaller panels show the throughput of patients, body parts and symptoms, replete with the constant interuptions of a ringing phone.

Phillipa Perry has just published Couch Fiction, illustrated by her talented, one-time housekeeper. Along with a strong storyline, there are annotations explaining the psychotherapy underpinning the action. I have a signed copy and I'm finding it a fascinating read. It was also interesting to meet Daryl Cunningham, former psychiatric nurse who has drawn on his experience to write Psychiatric Tales.

I must congratulate Fatimah Mohamied, a former student on my Medical Humanities course at Imperial College, who developed her work on medical manga and gave a cracking presentation!

I came away from the conference feeling more confident about using graphic novels in my teaching, inspired by Michael Green and Susan Squire from Penn State University who have a great humanities programme within the medical school; Stella Williams from the West Indies who uses comics to teach communication skills; and Linda Raphael from Washington who spoke about using autobiographical comics.

Well done to Ian Williams for being the driving force behind such a great conference, and to the Wellcome Trust who sponsored the event.

Bellevue Makes Literary History

2010-04-23T02:53:00.002+01:00

The Bellevue Literary Press is honored with the Pulitzer Prize. Paul Harding’s debut novel–Tinkers–won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

The Bellevue Literary Press was founded in 2005 as a sister organization to the Bellevue Literary Review. The BLPress publishes literary and authoritative fiction and nonfiction at the nexus of the arts and the sciences, with a special focus on medicine.

This is the first small publisher to win a Pulitzer since “Confederacy of Dunces” in 1981. And it’s certainly a first for a public hospital!

Tinkers is a poetic novel in which a dying man explores his own life and the generations before him. It is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature.

Big congratulations to author Paul Harding, editor Erika Goldman, publisher Jerome Lowenstein. And congrats to Bellevue Hospital and NYU Dept of Medicine for supporting the Bellevue Literary Press.

Become a Fan of the Bellevue Literary Press on Facebook.

Read how the New York Times missed this one….

Check out all the books at the Bellevue Literary Press.

-------------

Danielle Ofri is a writer and practicing internist at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. She is the editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review. Her newest book is Medicine in Translation: Journeys with my Patients.

View the YouTube book trailer.

You can follow Danielle on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her homepage.

Artopsy

2010-04-22T15:57:00.003+01:00

It's nearly time for the annual art exhibition from Imperial's Medical Humanities Students. This is a real celebration of creativity. The official opening is on 11 May at 7.30 pm -- open to all, and no need to RSVP.

Birkbeck MA in Medical Humanities

2010-04-01T14:07:00.002+01:00

There is a brand new MA in Medical Humanities being offered at Birkbeck. Here are the details:

This two-year, part-time programme for clinicians, and other healthcare professionals, focuses on improving patient care through a deeper understanding of the Humanities disciplines (Literary Studies, Cultural & Critical Studies, History, Law, Philosophy, Art, Film and Visual Studies).

Taught by Birkbeck College and KSS Deanery, the MA draws together the emergent fields of Medical Humanities and Integrated Medicine to explore, critique and develop the daily practice of individual doctors in their interactions with patients and cultures.

This programme offers students a unique opportunity to encounter the rich insights of the Humanities about culture, the body and what it means to be human, as these have direct relevance upon clinical practice.

Students will acquire and refine skills in verbal and written communication, as well as research and critical analysis. They will engage with non-Western models of medical practice and undertake a research placement in a non-Western medical setting in London, or abroad.

Our location in Bloomsbury offers excellent access to all the major research libraries in London, including Senate House Library, the British Library and the Wellcome Collection.

The unique link between Birkbeck College and KSS Deanery means that this programme combines world-class research-led Humanities teaching with an established understanding of the real-life experience of clinical practice and patient care.

For more information about the course, and about Birkbeck, visit: www.bbk.ac.uk/eh/. Alternatively you are welcome to contact the Admissions tutor, Dr Jo Winning (j.winning@bbk.ac.uk).

To apply online, visit:
www.bbk.ac.uk/study/pg/newcoursesfor2010/medhum.html

Photographing Alzheimer's

2010-04-01T13:58:00.002+01:00

There is a beautiful and moving (in both sense of the word) gallery of photographs of the surgeon Ed Akell, taken by his wife Judith Fox, since his diagnosis with Alzheimer's twelve years ago. These are emotive portraits and really tell a story -- testimony to the power that still photography retains. The photographs are on display at the Cork Street Gallery in London this weekend. But the slideshow on the BBC with a commentary by Judith Fox is a good substitute if you can't make it.

Dance and Medicine

2010-03-16T13:06:00.003Z

The mid-point of medical residency is probably the bleakest point in medical training. The daily grind of death and disease wears young doctors down, and the end of residency seems impossibly far off. In the second year of my residency at Bellevue Hospital, I began taking dance class at the Martha Graham studio in Manhattan. It turned out to be an unexpectedly visceral lifesaver for me.

Here is an excerpt from the essay, “Pas de Deux,” which appears in the new anthology from “Becoming a Doctor,” edited by Lee Gutkind. (Norton, 2010.)

“One day, after a long night in the ICU, I rushed straight to dance class, leotards under my scrubs. I had spent the bulk of my last thirty hours with Nilsa, a young woman dying of HIV. Nilsa’s body was ravaged by bacterial, viral and fungal infections. The body cavities that weren’t drowning in their own fluids were hemorrhaging blood. Her temperature never dipped below 103°. The breathing machine provided oxygen in exchange for her tuberculosis-laden breaths. I injected sedatives when she convulsed, her water-logged lungs laboring to absorb more oxygen. The nurse and I arranged icepacks around her burning skin, but they melted rapidly. Her death was slow and brutal. Her mother, two brothers, and aunt sat with her, weeping into their protective respiratory masks.

I limped out of the hospital after signing Nilsa’s death certificate. There were so many infections that I couldn’t decide which one to write for “immediate cause of death.” My sleep-starved body longed for bed, but my aching soul dragged my protesting limbs to East 63^rd Street.

We were doing the plié-relevé series, a set of exercises that I have always found particularly beautiful. There is one point, in fifth position, in which the drama builds until the climax occurs with just one simple motion: a 90° twist of the body while lifting into a relevé, one arm scooping an arc into the sky. In one brief, but compelling, moment, the whole class rises into the air as a single being, sweeping its focus from the one corner of the room to the other. Physically subtle, yet emotionally dramatic, almost more so for the understatement of the movement.

…I look back now and realize that it was the continual infusion of the aesthetics of dance that helped keep me alive throughout those draining years. After each daily dose of agony and suffering, I needed not only to witness beauty, but to participate in beauty. I was well aware that I couldn’t possibly approach the feats of the advanced dancers, but that turned out not to matter at all. It was enough just to be a bit player in that world, to be a miniscule stitch in that weave of beauty.”

Reprinted from “Pas de Deux” by Danielle Ofri, from “Becoming a Doctor,” Gutkind, L., ed. ©Norton, 2010.

*********

View the YouTube book trailer.

You can follow Danielle on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her homepage.

Her blog, Medicine in Translation, appears on Psychology Today’s website.

Concepts of health and illness conference

2010-03-15T16:01:00.000Z

Conference announcement and call for papers: Concepts of health and illness
1-3 September 2010, UWE, Bristol, UWE, Bristol and Lancaster University
Conference funded by the AHRC

Keynote Speakers:

Dr Jonathan Andrews (Newcastle, UK), The 'deja la' of madness? Continuities and shifts in the relationship between madness and death

Prof Baroness Ilora Finlay (Cardiff & House of Lords, UK), Fear as a key driver in the assisted suicide debate

Prof KWM Fulford (Oxford & Warwick, UK), Delusion and Spiritual Experience: Facts, Values and Concepts of Disorder in Mental Health

Prof Lennart Nordenfelt (Linköping, Sweden), The Controversy between Naturalistic and Holistic Theories of Health and Illness

Prof Fredrik Svenaeus (Södertörns högskola, Sweden), What is phenomenology of medicine? Embodiment, illness and being-in-the-world

Dr Alex Wood (Manchester, UK), Conceptions of Psychological Well-Being and Illness: Sickness, Optimal Functioning, and Authenticity

Over the past three decades, various accounts of health, illness and disease have been proposed by researchers from history, sociology, law, philosophy, public health and economics. Often, however, proponents of various accounts have been isolated within their own discipline with an apparent unawareness of competing accounts. As a result, while there are now a number of different accounts of health, illness and disease available, there is no consensus about which, if any, of these accounts is ultimately acceptable and what implications each account may have.
This three-day international conference will explore differences and overlaps between these different accounts. The conference aims to bring together researchers from multiple disciplines to create dialogue between them, as well as between researchers and healthcare practitioners, on the concepts of health, illness and disease.

We welcome contributions from any relevant discipline on any topic that falls within the broad remit of the conference title. Each paper will be allotted 20 minutes for presentation, followed by a ten-minute discussion. We aim for the conference to be inclusive and to represent a broad range of views and approaches. We particularly welcome contributions from healthcare practitioners. There will be a number of slots reserved for graduate papers and graduate bursaries will be available.

Contributions are invited for:
· Panel topics
· Individual papers
· Healthcare practitioners contributions
· Graduate papers

NB: please send us your abstract before the deadline if you require an early response. We strongly recommend this option for overseas participants who may need to book flights.
Please send proposals (500 word abstract) via email by Monday 12 April, 2010 to both organisers:Dr Havi Carel havi.carel@uwe.ac.ukDr Rachel Cooper r.v.cooper@lancaster.ac.uk

Registration

There is no registration fee and meals and refreshments will be provided during the conference. Participants who may wish to attend the conference without presenting in it are welcome to do so.

Rooms have been block-booked from the UWE Conference Centre and information on how to book accommodation for the duration of the conference will be circulated shortly.
The conference will be held at the UWE Frenchay Campus, in Bristol, UK. For maps and directions: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aboutUWE/campus/Frenchay.shtml

This conference is part of the AHRC-funded project on the concepts of health, illness and disease.

For the project home page: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/courses/philosophy/ahrc_chid_network.shtml

Conference organisers:
Dr Havi Carel (UWE, Bristol)
http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/politics/staff_hcarel.shtml

Dr Rachel Cooper (Lancaster)
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/philosophy/profiles/183/

Poetry in Medicine

2010-03-09T14:36:00.005Z

When I make rounds with my students and interns, I always try to sneak in a poem at the end. I think poetry is important because it helps convey the parts of the medical experience that don’t make it into textbooks. It’s important because it teaches creative thinking—something of immense value to doctors.

It’s important because interpreting metaphors is a critical clinical skill in diagnosis; patients’ symptoms often present in metaphorical manners and we doctors need to know how to interpret our patients’ metaphors. Last but not least, there is a therapeutic value to introducing beauty into a situation that is not commonly associated with aesthetics.

I’ve been giving poetry to my medical team for a few years now, but I’ve always wanted to give poetry to my patients. Unfortunately, English is not the first language for most of the patients in my hospital, so this has been challenging.

But there is one set of patients that seems to consistently speak English—the alcoholics. The Bowery-type alcoholics aren’t necessarily the favorite patients of the interns. These patients are frequent fliers, they are clinically “uninteresting,” they are often malodorous, and their illness is perceived as self-inflicted. But they do speak English.

So one morning on rounds, our team went to examine a new alcohol-withdrawal admission. His condition was standard: alcohol-on-breath, speech slurred, fingers trembling, hair and beard disheveled, body odor a mix of unwashed socks and cheap beer. He was cranky, and impatient with the detailed questions we asked.

As the team was finishing up, I whipped out some papers from my pocket—Jack Coulehan’s poem “I’m Gonna Slap Those Doctors. I gave a copy to the patient and distributed the rest to the resident, interns, and medical students. Asking their forbearance for this slight divergence from medical protocol, I plowed onward and read the poem aloud.

I’m Gonna Slap Those Doctors

Because the rosy condition

makes my nose bumpy and big,

and I give them the crap they deserve,

they write me off as a boozer

and snow me with drugs. Like I’m gonna

go wild and green bugs are gonna

crawl on me and I’m gonna tear out

their goddamn precious IV.

I haven’t had a drink in a year

but those slick bastards cross their arms

and talk about sodium. They come

with their noses crunched up like my room

is purgatory and they’re the

goddamn angels doing a bit

of social work. Listen, I might not

have much of a body left,

but I’ve got good arms -- the polio

left me that -- and the skin on my hands

is about an inch thick. And when I used

to drink I could hit with the best

in Braddock. Listen, one more shot

of the crap that makes my tongue stop

and they’ll have something on their hands

they didn’t know existed. They’ll have time

on their hands. They’ll be spinning around

drunk as skunks, heads screwed on backwards,

and then Doctor Big Nose is gonna smell

their breaths, wrinkle his forehead, and spin

down the hall in his wheelchair

on the way to the goddamn heavenly choir.

(from Medicine Stone, 2002. © Jack Coulehan, reprinted with permission)

As I read the poem, I could feel the atmosphere in the room changing, ever so slightly. The focus shifted from the patient to the poem, and everyone was an equal neophyte with this particular poem.

When I finished reading, some of the medical team looked uncomfortable, but the patient was smiling broadly. “This is great,” he said. “I love it!” With his pronouncements, everyone relaxed a bit.

“You know,” the patient continued, seemingly happy to have an audience, “ I used to read some books, back in the day.” He sat up in bed, more animated now. “I like history stuff—ancient Greeks, ancient Romans. Real characters, those guys.”

We ended up having a conversation about his childhood in small-town New Jersey, how he cut classes in high school to putter around on the beach.

We left the room feeling awkward but also somehow lighter. Suddenly our patient wasn’t just another alcoholic drying out on the ward. He was a real person, someone who stood out in our minds.

The poem certainly didn’t change the course of his devastating disease of alcoholism. It didn’t offer him the epiphany to suddenly quit drinking or to reconnect with his estranged family. His liver enzymes didn’t miraculously normalize. His platelets didn’t bound back to health. But it gave all of us a sense of human connection.

Throughout his four-day stay in the hospital, the patient was much more pleasant to the team. I noticed that the students and interns wandered in more frequently to say hello. We all felt just a bit more connected.

Rx: Take two sonnets and call me in the morning.

If you are interested in poetry and medicine, check out this unique conference at Duke University on May 21-23. Life Lines: Poetry for Our Patients, Our Communities, Ourselves. (I will be giving a presentation there.)

You can follow Danielle on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her homepage.

Her blog, Medicine in Translation, appears on Psychology Today’s website.

Burnout

2010-02-28T15:07:00.002Z

Taking care of ill patients exerts an enormous physical and emotional toll. Caregivers of all types—doctors, nurses, therapists, family members—are susceptible to these strains. But reactions to these stresses are different. Some caregivers possess large emotional reserve and strong support systems. Others become cynical or callous. Still others find that these stresses exacerbate underlying depression or drug and alcohol issues. For most caregivers, it is a complex combination of individual coping mechanisms and an evolution of our personalities—for better or worse.

In this video “Intensive Care,” I tell the story of a remarkable and brilliant physician who had a profound effect on me during my medical training. It is a true story, but the names have been changed.

The essay is from the book “Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue” (Beacon Press). The reading was filmed at Baruch College.

Watch video here.

You can follow Danielle on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her homepage.

Her blog, Medicine in Translation, appears on Psychology Today’s website.

Screening the Nurse: Call to Service

2010-02-25T18:40:00.001Z

An exploration of nursing in the film collection of the Imperial War Museum

Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th February 2010, 10am-5.45pm

On the 27th-28th February the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery and curators from the Imperial War Museum will use film to celebrate and analyse nurses' contributions to war - from Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole in the Crimean War to 21st century nursing in Iraq, via 20th century wars.

Modern professional nursing was born in the crucible of war. 2010 marks the 150th anniversary of the Nightingale Training School from which the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery at King's College London is descended. The School was funded by an outpouring of national thanksgiving for Florence Nightingale in the form of charitable donations, following her expedition to Turkey during the Crimean War.

Experts from the School and colleagues from Film Studies, War Studies and the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, together with the Museum's curators and guests from other universities, will introduce documentary, recruitment and feature films followed by question and answer sessions featuring panels of experts. A live musical accompaniment will provide a soundtrack to the silent films. Some of the films have never been screened to the public before.

Screening the Nurse: Call to Service is open to the public and entry is free. Admission is first come, first entry, and visitors may enter and exit between, but not during, sessions.

For the programme and more information see

http://london.iwm.org.uk/server/show/conEvent.3224

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/nursing/events/other.html

Music in Medicine?

2010-02-19T02:10:00.003Z

The holiday season is finally over. Not to be a complete Grinch, but I am more than happy to see all the tinsel and reindeer and artificial snow come down from the halls of our hospital. Whether all that holiday ornamentation actually belongs in a hospital is fodder for a difference essay, but the part that I’m most glad about is that the piped-in music has stopped.

Every morning, for two long months, when I slogged into the hospital to make rounds on my ill patients, I had to suffer the repeating loop of Christmas music on my way to the elevators. It’s not necessarily that I dislike holiday music—though these renditions were definitely not Grammy finalists—but that I didn’t want someone else’s music forced into my head.

Music is intensely personal. Unlike the art that adorns the hospital walls, which I am free to turn away from if I don’t like, the music was inescapable for the length of the hallway, which could feel interminable on the 57^th loop of “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Music has strong therapeutic qualities, as evinced by the growing number of music therapy programs in hospital settings. There’s even a scientific journal “Music and Medicine” devoted to scientific developments in musicology that affect patients.

But I wonder about the effects on the staff who are forced to listen to music that is not of their choice? I’m not sure about the rest of my colleagues, but I am horrifically susceptible to musical worms—the melodies that get stuck in your head and replay in perpetuity.

So, for the majority of the extended holiday season, I would round on my patients and review their medical conditions with “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly” as an underlying basso continuo. Some would say that this could be a good thing, but personally I felt hostage to these saccharine tunes.

When finally I turned in despair to my (Jewish) supervisor, he said confessed to me in a low voice: “Oh, this is my favorite time of year. The music in hall just makes me feel so happy.”

Maybe it is just personal taste, but to me music is too potent to squander with tinny Muzak forced on the unbidden masses. Here’s an essay I wrote on music and medicine that appeared in The Lancet, trying to reconcile my day-job as a physician and my after-hours gig as a struggling cello student. I’d appreciate your thoughts.

**************************

Danielle Ofri is a writer and practicing internist at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. She is the editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review. Her newest book is Medicine in Translation: Journeys with my Patients. View the YouTube book trailer.

You can follow Danielle on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her homepage.

Her blog, Medicine in Translation, appears on Psychology Today’s website.

Bryan Charnley

2010-02-12T12:36:00.011Z

Bryan Charnley was an artist and schizophrenic patient, he started the 'Self Portraits Series' in 1991 and was encouraged by a friend to keep a diary that explained the imagery of the portraits. You could call it an experiment of sorts as the series openly describes the graded sufferings he was oppressed by, as he struggled with his medication (see the enclosed linked for more information). The portraits describe his paranoia, depression, and psychosis accurately.

Brian Charnley in March 1991 at the beginning of the series.

3 Months later

18th of May 1991

13th of June 1991

There was no commentary for the penultimate and final portraits which do not even have faces on them, but this 'map' shows very well the paranoia Charnley was facing as he feels surrounded by enemies, despite 'Hope' being at the centre.

This final portrait was left on the easel in his studio where he committed suicide shortly after painting it.

Writing About Patients: Is it Ethical?

2010-02-12T11:55:00.004Z

There is a veritable epidemic of doctor-writers out there. What is going on?

Are doctors suddenly in the kiss-and-tell mode? What about confidentiality? Professionalism? HIPAA?

As one of the aforementioned doctor-writers, I look upon this trend with both awe and trepidation. I suspect that that this flourishing literary phenomenon relates to the public’s fascination and fear about all things medical. It also relates to the falling away of previous, pedestal-like images of doctors and doctoring. Lastly, it may have occurred to the medical profession—and this has taken a few centuries, it seems—that doctors have profound emotional reactions to the work we do, and that exploring these reactions may offer benefit to both patient and doctor.

Whatever the reason, this literary genre appears to be here to stay, and it is worth considering the ethical implications. Legally, there doesn’t appear to be much beyond protecting identity and avoiding libel.

But physicians clearly need to work with a higher bar. For starters, patients speak to doctors with an expectation of confidentiality. This is vastly different from an ordinary citizen speaking to a journalist. This confidentiality needs to be preserved. Unless a patient indicates otherwise, a doctor-writer must change the name and identifying characteristics. My rule of thumb is that the description must be different enough that it would be tough for anyone other than that person or a close associate to recognize them.

This, of course, brings up an issue of reliability. We’re trafficking in nonfiction, not fiction. When I write, I try to ensure that the aspects I change are not the crucial ones in the story. When talking about the intricacies of an illness, it probably doesn’t matter whether the hair is blond or brown, or the country of origin is Trinidad rather than Jamaica. If these minor things mask the patient’s identity without altering the key aspects of the story, then I think it is a reasonable trade-off.

But most importantly, there is the consideration that patients come to us for our help. They are in a particularly vulnerable situation and doctors have an ethical obligation to put that first. If, at some later time, this seems like a story that might edify the current discourse, the doctor might think about writing it up. It is helpful to let some time pass, so that the situation is no longer “active.” If it’s possible to obtain consent, we should do so.

If I can’t obtain consent, then I need to ask myself whether I feel the patient might be hurt by the publication of the story. If there’s any thought that this person would be uncomfortable or embarrassed or pained, then the story stays in the drawer, no matter how amazing it is. (I have one powerful story—about a patient lied to me, and the implications of that lie—but I suspect that my patient would be unhappy if he ever saw the story, so I’ve never pursued publication.)

Ultimately, I want to give a respectful rendering of my patient’s story, one that I hope would honor them and what they’ve endured. Of course this is necessarily a subjective decision, but it is the only internal ethic that I can live with. My patients have entrusted me with their stories, and I need to respect that. If a particular story can edify future doctors, or educate the public, there might be value in publishing it.

I choose these stories very carefully. I obtain consent when possible—patients almost always have a positive reaction. I let time pass. I try my best to write a story that honors them, and show a draft to them if circumstances permit.

Ultimately, doctor-writers have to treat patients’ stories as we treat our patients, realizing that we are in a privilege position, and taking care not to abuse that.

(Read more about the ethics of doctors writing in Danielle Ofri’s essay in The Lancet.)

You can follow Danielle on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her homepage.

Her blog, Medicine in Translation, appears on Psychology Today’s website.

Portraits, Patients and Psychiatrists

2010-02-10T14:24:00.006Z

Last week I attended a very interesting seminar at King's College London's new Centre for the Humanities and Health. Artist Gemma Anderson and psychiatrist Tim McInerny have collaborated on a project called 'Portraits: Patients and Psychiatrists'. Dr McInerny, a forensic psychiatrist working at Broadmoor, was inspired by seeing Gemma's etchings at the RCA's graduate show. He felt that they had parallels with psychiatry in that they gave an insight into the personalities of her sitters. They decided to collaborate on a series of portraits of psychiatrists and their patients, supported by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award.

The portraits are deliberately ambiguous -- doctor and patient are not immediately discernable. One of the strengths of the project is that it honours both sitters as individuals, rather than highlighting the differences in status between them.

Gemma works from life on a large wax tablet. She gets to know her sitters, finding out what interests them. She then incorporates imagery from their narraties into the portrait, often drawing from natural history museum collections. The portraits reminded me of frontispieces to 18th century books -- full of symbolism and 'emblems'.

Because anonymity needs to be respected, the line-drawing nature of the etchings is ideal. There is not too much facial detail, but each is still recognisable as a portrait. Gemma stressed that she was not trying to capture the entire life story of her subjects, although this informs her work. The portraits are her interpretations, rather than a transcription of her sitters' stories. She did not seek 'approval' from the sitters about what to include.

Dr McInerny explained that the patients and the doctors enjoyed having their portraits made. The natural imagery and the sense of calm that pervades the portraits serves as a counterbalance to the often very negative imagery that abounds about psychiatric patients in the press. Of course, it is tempting to focus on the patients' portraits because their life stories have had such a profound influence on their circumstances, but this is also true of the doctors who treat them. The portraits remind us that there is more to the personality than the sum of our personal or profession actions.

You can read more about the project and find out about the fascinating working methods employed in making the etchings on Gemma's blog.

Hippocrates poetry prize -- deadline extended

2010-02-02T20:16:00.002Z

The deadline for the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine has been extended to 15 February. The prize will be announced at the splendid sounding 2010 International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine being held in Warwick on 10 April.

8.45am Registration
9.25am Symposium start
5pm Close of Symposium followed by a reception for speakers, delegates and Hippocrates Prize winners.

Symposium speakers will include: Peter Goldsworthy Poet and medical practitioner, Australia Michael Hulse Editor, The Warwick Review

Symposium topics will include: poetry in medical settings (oncology, cardiovascular disorders, childhood illness ...); doctor poets (Gottfried Benn, William Carlos Williams); poetry in the consultation; creative health professionals; medical inspirations for poetry (anatomy; poisoning in Shakespeare's writings ...).

Call for papers
Submissions are welcome for the Symposium as posters for discussion or short oral communications. Email the Symposium Office to express interest in submitting a Symposium Abstract. Closing date for Symposium Abstract submission has been brought forward to 6pm Friday 19th February 2010.

Key themes will include:history of interactions between medicine, health and poetry; impact of health and disease on the writings of the professional poet; poetry as therapy; the nature of the body, and anatomy; the history, evolution, current and future state of medical science; the nature and experience of tests; the experience of doctors, nurses and other staff in hospitals and in the community; the experience of patients, families, friends and carers in these situations; the experiences of acute and long-term illness and dying, of birth, of cure and convalescence; the patient journey; the nature and experience of treatment with herbs, chemicals and devices used in medicine.

The Symposium is being held on the awards day for the 2010 International Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine.

2010 Hippocrates Prize - Closing deadline 12 midnight GMT Monday 15th February. The 2010 Hippocrates Prize awards will be announced at the Symposium. There is a £15,000 award fund for the prizes, which will be given in an ‘open’ category which anyone can enter and in an ‘NHS’ category open to National Health Service employees and health students. The first prize for the winning poem in each category is £5,000.

Broadcaster, journalist and writer James Naughtie are joining NHS Medical Director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh and poet and Doctor Dannie Abse as judges of this new pair of national and international medical poetry awards.

The 2010 Hippocrates Prize is being organised by a joint team from the University of Warwick’s Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies and the University’s Medical School.

The International Poetry and Medicine Symposium and the 2010 Hippocrates Prize are supported by the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Warwick and by the national Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine.

Nurse Jackie

2010-01-15T09:59:00.009Z

What to make of the new hospital series Nurse Jackie? Having watched the first week of episodes (thank you iPlayer! It's screening on BBC2 at 10 pm every night), it's hard not to feel rather horrified. Nurse Jackie is, in so many ways, inspirational. She acts in the patient's best interests. She subverts hospital bureaucracy whenever necessary, stealing from the bad to give to the more deserving. Unless, of course, the patient is a misogynist with diplomatic immunity, in which case she has no compunction is flushing his ear (sliced off by a prostitute he attacked) down the toilet. So far, so entertaining. But Jackie has a serious drug problem. She scores pills from her pharmacist lover, and takes them in a variety of ways -- from sprinkling them in her coffee to snorting up the contents of capsules.

The idea of a 'conflicted' health professional is not new. House has a drug problem too, along with brilliant clinical judgement. Why then, in Nurse Jackie so much more disturbing? Jackie is smart and sassy, and it is so refreshing to see a nurse in the prime role rather than another stereotyped doctor. But the message that Jackie gives is that it is not possible to cope with the job unless you have a pharmaceutical crutch. What sort of a role model is she?

There are plenty of cop shows on TV that show corruption, and we don't worry that these are serving as poor role models for aspiring policemen and women. Also, there is no shortage of doctor dramas that highlight character flaws in health professionals. So why do I feel so anxious watching Nurse Jackie? I think it is because we are seeing something new by way of character development, hinted at in House but fully developed in Nurse Jackie. Usually in TV dramas, you have clearly identifiable 'goodies' and 'baddies'. Over the course of a series, one type might turn out to be another, but almost invariably, character flaws are explicable in terms of someone's circumstances. The evidence of the first week of Nurse Jackie, however, plays havoc with the usual conventions of TV drama. Jackie has a lovely family: gorgeous husband and two adorable daughters. She is good at her job. And she seems entirely unconflicted by her frequent unethical personal behaviour. This may, of course, all come unstuck over the course of the series, but it's too late. We already love Nurse Jackie for her sheer chutzpah and her apparent ability to be in total control of her complicated life. Most tellingly, one would really want her on your side if you were a patient.

Medical students often tell me that they are inspired by House. But they do realise that House is utterly unrealistic, and most admit that they would not like to be his patient. For all its good writing and well researched medical interventions, House still comes across as a bit of a soap opera. Personal relationships unfold within a clinic that looks like a hotel, with little evidence of the demands of 'real' medicine. Nurse Jackie sets up greater intimacy with the viewer, using the Gray's Anatomy voice-over technique to impart wisdom. The bureaucracy in the hospital makes it feel more realistic, albeit in a rather superficial way. She is a far more sympathetic character than the gruff and misanthropic House ever could be.

Nurse Jackie will undoubtedly inspire more people to enter the nursing profession -- and that's good. We need more nurses. But we have to trust that people can distinguish right from wrong. Drug taking has no place in the profession, but this doesn't mean we should condemn a well-written, well-acted TV drama.

Brian Fies at Comics and Medicine conference

2010-01-15T09:49:00.002Z

Brian Fies, writer of the award-winning Mom's Cancer, will be speaking at the Comics and Medicine conference. Brian is a pioneer in the use of the graphic novel to communicate about illness, and his book has become a classic. I'm really looking forward to meeting him. The deadline for proposals for papers and posters is 29 January: more information here.

Medical Poetry Prize

2009-12-05T08:39:00.004Z

A major new poetry prize has been announced. The Hippocrates Prize is an annual competition for a poem on a medical subject. There is a separate category for NHS employees and UK students. The first prize is £5000. The only catch is that each entry costs £6. The deadline is 31 January.

Comics and medicine conference

2009-11-30T11:29:00.004Z

The lovely and talented Ian Williams over at Graphic Medicine is organising a conference called 'Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels'. It's scheduled for 17 June 1010 at the Institute for English Studies at UCL. It should be a real treat.

Confirmed keynote lectures by Paul Gravett and Marc Zaffran

This one-day interdisciplinary conference aims to explore medical narrative in graphic novels and comics. Although the first comic book was invented in 1837 the long-format graphic narrative has only become a distinct and unique body of literary work relatively recently. Thanks in part to the growing Medical Humanities movement, many medical schools now encourage the reading of iterature and the study of art to gain insights into the human condition. A serious content for comics is not new but representation of illness in graphic novels is an increasing trend. The melding of text and visuals in graphic fiction and non-fiction has much to offer medical professionals, students and, indeed, patients. Among the growing number of graphic novels, a sub-genre exploring the patients' and the carers' experiences of illness or disability has emerged.

Papers and posters are invited on issues related to, but not restricted to, the following themes:
•What motivates authors to produce graphic narratives with medical content?
•How does the audience for this growing genre differ from traditional markets for so-called ‘pathographies’?
•What additional insights can graphic narratives offer into healthcare compared with literature and film?
•What international trends are discernible in the production and reception of medical graphic narratives?
•What are the ethical implications of using graphic narratives to disseminate public health messages?
•What are the strengths of graphic fiction in bioethics conversations? In conversations between patients and health care workers?
•How have patients (and patient communities) turned to graphic fiction to communicate health care and advocacy information to other patients, their family and surrounding community, and their physicians?
•How do patient-created graphic fictions/narratives differ from physician- or health-care industry-created graphic narratives? What does this imply about the role played by graphic fiction in institutionalized medicine?
•How can graphic stories be used in medical education and patient education?
•What are the roles of graphic stories in enhancing communication within the medical profession, in scholarship and in the medical humanities?

Contributions are sought from humanities scholars, comics scholars, healthcare professionals, comics enthusiasts, writers and cartoonists.

300 word proposals for a 20 minute paper or a poster should be submitted by Friday 29th January 2010 to submissions@graphicmedicine.org

Abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:
author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract

We acknowledge receipt and answer to all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer reviewed blind and papers for presentation will be selected by Friday 26th of February 2010.

A report of the conference will be submitted to relevant journals and websites. All the papers and posters accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for development in a themed volume (subject to funding).

Paul Gravett is a London-based freelance journalist, curator, lecturer, writer and broadcaster, who has worked in comics publishing and promotion since 1981. He has curated numerous exhibitions of comic art in Britain and in Europe and since 2003 has been the director of Comica, London's International Comics Festival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Paul is the co-author, with Peter Stanbury, of the books Manga: 60 Years Of Japanese Comics (2004), Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life (2005), Great British Comics: Celebrating A Century Of Ripping Yarns & Wizard Wheezes (2006), The Leather Nun & Other Incredibly Strange Comics (2008) and he is the editor of The Mammoth Book Of Best Crime Comics (2008). On television he has been a consultant and interview subject on The South Bank Show's programme Manga Mania (2006) and BBC4's documentary series Comics Britannia (2007). Also, he appeared as interview subject in the DVD documentary The Mindscape Of Alan Moore (2007). He continues to write about comics for various periodicals.

Marc Zaffran, M.D. is a French-born Family Physician and a writer (under the pen name Martin WInckler). He is currently a researcher at the University of Montreal. He has written forty books including novels and essays on patient doctor relationship, the ethics of healthcare and the representation of Doctors in mass-media fiction including pulp novels, television drama and comic-books. He is currently studying the works of a French doctor and comic-book artist,
Charles Masson.

Reminiscing

2009-11-14T22:58:00.002Z

I was just going through my old files on my computer when I stumbled upon a folder marked 'Humanities'. I double-clicked on it with a smile. Good times.

We once went to _______ Museum/Gallery (Okay so I can't remember where it was..) and saw Monet's work. Giskin had asked us to/made us come up with a poem. And I found the one I wrote and thought since I was in such a good mood, I'd post it up here.

There once was a man who painted
Art so great, a lady swooned and fainted
The useless young miss
Awoke only to a kiss
To find herself all but tainted.

Narrative Remains at the Hunterian

2009-10-16T10:05:00.002+01:00

Karen Ingham's new film and exhibit, Narrative Remains, at the Hunterian Museum is a fine example of not only Medical Humanities but also of doing a great deal with very little. Her subjects are a series of pathological specimens, collected and annotated by John Hunter. Neat little jars, with neat little labels, whose contents are anything but - among them, the throat and larynx of a singer silenced by tuberculosis, a diseased liver, a cancerous lung and bowel segment. Ingham's work takes the viewer right inside Hunter's pathology lab as he decides which specimens to keep, and then removes and preserves them. Yet it is not his voice we hear. Instead, the narrative of the remains is given by the patients themselves. It is as if their spirits hovered at Hunter's shoulder while he worked, reading the notes he made, explaining how they suffered and understanding why they died. They are neat little ghosts, calmed by death, intrigued by their awakening, first by Hunter, then by Ingham. If they sound pleased that out of so many specimens, so many dead, they have been selected for immortality, then they should be. Ingham's film may be small scale but it is technically flawless. The jars are lit and photographed like bright jewels, drawing the viewer towards the unsettling contents at their heart, mesmerising. The film echoes the overall effect of the Hunterian Museum itself, with its own extraordinary setting of light and glass.

Everything about the exhibit is useful and moving. The catalogue essays are models of clarity. Part of the film is genuinely funny (no spoiler). This is what museums should be doing - allowing artists of vision to interpret and illuminate their permanent collections - bringing life, light and understanding, allowing the silent to speak.

Narrative Remains is at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 35-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE. Open 10-5pm Tues- Sat. Free Admission. Exhibit runs until 5th December.

My longest ever nose bleed - Part 1

2009-09-20T00:11:00.006+01:00

I am pleased to randomly state that I have fully recovered from a nasal operation I had over 2 months ago.

I now feel sufficiently rehabilitated and courageous enough to actually write/type down a record of my experiences. I was considering doing this on my blog, but felt obliged to place it on this one due to influences medical humanities had on my stay at the hospital.

For some odd reason, the week before the surgery, I was not even thinking about it. This odd behaviour continued until the night before the oh so dreaded day, as I was forced into planning what I was going to take with me, due to being informed that I would spend one night in the wards. I was so wrapped up in planing my luggage, that I even asked my sister's opinions on which pyjamas I should wear. I ended up taking three manga volumes, my A4 hardback art book, a pot of ink, paint brushes, a pencil case, a Harry Potter book, my glasses (which I don't even wear), toiletries including facial wash, creams, and make up (god knows why I took them) an extra headscarf, pink woolly pyjamas (I forgot it was July, but liked the colour) and my journal book.

I thought fear might hit me like Heathcliff bashing his head against a tree trunk... but it didn't. 7.30 the next morning I was at the hospital, armed with various medication and pyjamas, whilst I still had not one ounce of fear, trepidation, foreboding of any other ill feeling, not even excitement. My family on the other hand were rather nervous.

I arrived at the medical admissions lounge, expecting to wait for four hours, but I was not even able to read 3 pages of Harry Potter, when a nurse called my name, I was interviewed for what seemed the 4th time about my medical history, which I am absolutely sure is all in the notes as I explicitly remember telling at least 3 physicians previously of the same details which got recorded into the same set of notes. The nurse would ask me of my name first in case I didn't know it, then gave me a wrist band saying my name on it to enforce my identity, I felt slightly like a prisoner as the hospital number had a much larger font than my actual name.

The questions flowed on to my asthma, medication, and allergies, of which I was awarded a second band, bright red in colour and detailing the murderous allergens. I really liked that band, it made me feel distinguished and special. The nurse kept asking me stupid questions about metal plates, here is how it went:

Nurse: 'Do you have any metal substance in or on your body'
Dessa: 'Just the pins in my scarf'
Nurse: 'Any metal studs?'
Dessa: 'No'
Nurse: 'Any metal plates?'
Dessa: 'Err... no.'
Nurse: 'Any jewelery?'
Dessa: 'No'
Nurse: 'Any gold teeth?'
Dessa: 'No'
Nurse: 'Any braces?'
Dessa: 'No!' (by this time I was thinking 'surely I answered all this crap at the beginning')
Nurse: 'Any retainers?'
Dessa: 'No' (I pitied her for having to ask all these questions to every patient by this stage)
Nurse: 'Any metal body piercings'
Dessa: 'No.'
Nurse: 'Anything metal that might fall off during surgery?'
Dessa: (I actually paused to think about it here) 'Err... no.'

I was then dismissed and called again 30 minutes later by the anaesthetist, who spoke to me in clear simple language, I enjoyed shocking her into understand of my medical knowledge. Then we discussed my susceptibility to vomiting at the hands of analgesics; glamorised by medical jargon.

10 minutes after this interview, I was again called by the nurse to do the only thing I was afraid of: changing into the hospital gown, I'd like to describe them like a sheet of material that's only purpose in life is to make you feel uncomfortable, thank God for the dressing gown they offered! Despite the rather exposed feeling that accompanied wearing the 'gown' I made a new found discovery involving my feet. Being made to wear tight white stockings to prevent thrombosis, I was pleasantly surprised to find that white socks remarkably suited my feet and made them look very daintily cute, all I needed was a pair of heels and I'd be sorted. The effect was somewhat ruined by the trademark label on one side of the stockings and 'Property of the NHS' written on the other.

The worst was still to come, I had never thought that wearing these revolutionary stockings and horrid gown might prevent me from wearing my trainers, and so, I had to wear green spongy sort of flippers which were too big for my good-looking feet and made me feel like a genetically modified penguin. The idea of wearing the highest possible heels, never seemed more tempting. It was in this embarrassing state that I walked down corridors filled with normally dressed people, in normal shoes and who could possibly have metal plates, whilst feeling incredibly out of place, even though I was in a hospital.

At the lifts, I parted from my slightly smothering family, and remained without any significant emotion. My indifference and nonchalance was even surprising me at this stage, the only thing that was running in my head was how I was going to get into surgery with my hair covered....

Barry's colonoscopy journal

2009-09-18T17:40:00.005+01:00

My Mum passed on this viral, which I thought our Resident Colonoscopist in particular would appreciate!

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.

A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis .

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner.

I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven.

I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation.

In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.

Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons). Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep.

The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained
space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep.

At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this , but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point.

Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' had to be the least appropriate.

'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said.

And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood.

Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that it was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.

On the subject of Colonoscopies...

Colonoscopies are no joke, but these comments during the exam were quite humorous.....
A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies:

1. 'Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!
2. 'Find Amelia Earhart yet?'
3. 'Can you hear me NOW?'
4. 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?'
5. 'You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married.'
6. 'Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?'
7. 'You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out....'
8. 'Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!'
9. 'If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!
10. 'Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.'
11. 'You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?'
12. 'God, now I know why I am not gay.'

And the best one of all.
13. 'Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?'

How women go down in surgery - in the former eastern bloc

2009-09-17T16:29:00.003+01:00

I have been to the first women in surgery seminar at an international meeting of surgeons in the former eastern bloc. I perhaps set an unfortunate precedent by being naive enough to think I would just be plugging in my laptop and away I went. By the time I'd discovered the little men round the back who orchestrate it all (cf Wizard of Oz) whose English was not up to my question as to whether open office would do, I had to hand them my stick to translate into the dreaded powerpoint and disappear. My talk was not, thankfully, in the main hall with 2000 people but in the little session right at the back of this vast circular building (concrete, "a landmark in the history of reinforced concrete architecture", hilarious) but wasn't hilarious when my talk came up all - well, slightly - mucked up on powerpoint. I had left it too late to fuss about the line spacing. After all that preparation! And it had strangely lost all the photos of the kids. Had to hotfoot it, racing round this concrete famous structure to my talk at the back.

so, not a complete disaster but a really rubbish beginning. Got there, late, and the introduction was in full swing - but not in English. She put me straight on, and I talked ok, in English of course, without notes, apart from forgetting the name of one of the women surgeons in a photo - I had been going to talk about her but couldn't as forgot her name. complete blank. so had to move on.

Winced through the crap layout of 3 slides and the one of my partner looking official in his work photo (in none of my own does he look presentable like that) but without the one next to it of the
kids and finished it ok.

The plan was to have 4 talks in English followed by a question session. I had been told that there was some antagonism regarding any meeting specifically for women in surgery in this country from other women surgeons. This I have also met in the UK. But it isn't about the women who are already established and happy they are on the same level as the men. It is about encouraging normal female medical graduates - not crazy extreme workaholics but normal types who want a family, some work-life balance AND an interesting job, to consider surgery. I think. So I was looking forward to the discussion panel that I was expecting to sit on.

First there was a good talk by an Austrian surgeon, who had looked at the German speaking countries' proportion of female surgeons. They are better than us, anyway, with some highlights in paediatric surgery (50%!) and plastics. What are they doing right? Rest of surgical specialties all around 10-15% , with the same failure to increase numbers like the non-surgical specialties, so nothing spectacular. A talk on the history of women's involvement with the foundation of the Mayo clinic followed, then we had a crazy talk by a woman in black and white dogtooth suit with bright red hair which was all not in English either - so probably not crazy at all, I didn't have a lot to judge it by - and all rhymed but no idea what it was apart from obviously quite humorous.

This was followed by a quiet girl who'd interviewed some of the country's women surgeons (8 of them) and presented, battling somewhat against the wound-up now-raucous audience, her findings including quotes like "private life has to take second place to professional life, that is the way it is in surgery". I personally wanted to take issue with this, but there was time to talk at the end. Then our organising surgeon who is dashing all over running everything from the company who gave us free vodka (!) and the choice of chocolates to managing the eminent visiting surgeons from the Mayo (there is a historical Mayo brothers connection) gabbled through her questionnaire of women surgeons with no translation. I'd not been given a name place at the panel so had sat in the audience.

(but we'd already been interrupted by the president who had spoken for a while - after translation, the only thing translated, because he was dogged faithfully by his own personal translator as he moved around the conference halls - about how surgery was changing to be more delicate, like women, and had then interrupted again after the second talk to very pleasantly hand us out all great socking medals - including those who hadn't spoken yet - as he had to go off to welcome the international laparoscopic expert who was up next in the big hall. I sat there, wishing I could go to that instead of watching these somethings in a foreign language, nice as it is to listen to..)

We then had to put up with a big red-faced self-important bloke who stood up and started talking - not on the menu, but okayed by our leading vascular surgeon. He went on and on for at least ten minutes, cracking jokes, (none of it in English of course) stroking the vascular surgeon's hair fondly every now and then. Then he burst into "What a wonderful world" (I understood this) to which we were treated along with two whole verses. Not a bad voice, as he knew. But it was not the evening performance yet. I feel fairly sure this would not have happened in any other meeting of surgeons around the hall.

The panel discussion disappeared as there was only a female professor who started some kind of argument to which our organising surgeon replied in the same language then it was all over.
We got given chocolates to cheer us up. Great chocolates.

So, very let down not just by my naivety in not checking and rechchecking my talk, and in not being more proactive (no one TOLD me I had to go to the guys organising to get it on their computer, but then I didn't seek it out either) but also in the shambles and joke that the session turned into. I can't believe how far we have come in women in surgery in the England in that this would never be tolerated in our meetings, nor in those in Austria as I have heard. It is of course a cultural thing (the man-handling of women in particular), but to have a man stand up and dominate the meeting, (whoever he was) patronising us with his song when there were serious things to discuss is just incredibly disappointing.

there, had to get that off my chest.

The Brain Unravelled

2009-09-07T16:58:00.002+01:00

A short season of events and art installations kicks off today, entitled 'The Brain Unravelled'. Taking place at the Slade Research Centre Woburn Square, London, there are a number of interesting talks, workshops, screenings and performances, bringing together brain anatomy, neuroscience and anthopology. For the full programme, see here.

Healthy scepticism

2009-09-06T19:09:00.005+01:00

Despite my lack of recent blogging (due partly to working full time last year which nearly broke me and partly to a qualm or two about patient confidentiality, given the traceability of bloggers), I have still been talking about medical humanities and even have discovered, to my delight, a secret poet amongst my surgical colleagues, along with a self-published children's book author.

I have explained the concepts to my family and friends, waxing lyrical over the benefits of adding the arts into the nooks and crannies of medical life, where things reverberate.
However, there are some amongst my acquaintance who are clearly not convinced...

I publish these verses, by a friend:

THE MEDICAL HUMANITIES
(in the style of W.S.Gilbert)

At the outset I must mention
it is not my 'vowed intention
to deplore the intervention by a creche of Keyhole Kates
into Medical Humanities,
or other such urbanities
('though similar insanities add tuppence to the rates).

It's a brotherhood of sisters
(devotees of Joseph Lister's)
who extol the works of Misters: Milton, Coleridge and Keats
as an aid to better rounding
of a surgeon's basic grounding
or, at least, that's what it's sounding like: an aid to greater feats.

A colostomy, gastrectomy,
a routine appendectomy,
or, p'raps the odd vasectomy to brighten up their day.
Then maybe, if they feel the itch,
a final fling with blanket stitch
before a song (at concert pitch) to chase their cares away.

They'll be oh, so sympathetic
(not a bit of it synthetic)
while prescribing an emetic, 'though, as sure as “Heinz means Beans”,
this firmly rooted notion
of such lit'rary promotion
will result in their denotion as a bunch of “Milton-keens”.

Signed : Sceptic, of Sale
(With tongue firmly embedded in cheek), to my favourite left-handed Registrar.

Medicine and Manga

2009-08-19T12:58:00.002+01:00

I have recently compiled a review for a favourite manga (Japanese graphic novel) of mine, and Dr. Ian Williams has kindly hosted it on his website, where he details about various graphic novels with a medical content.

If anyone is interested; I enclose the required link.

Medical waxworks

2009-08-03T19:54:00.004+01:00

The lovely artist and sculptor Eleanor Crook is featured in a video made to accompany the Wellcome Collection's new exhibition, Exquisite Bodies (on until 18 October). Eleanor taught a very good life-drawing class on our medical humanities course at Imperial College in April. She has a fascinating job making models, often from wax, for medical purposes. You can see some of her work here. One of her models, showing the different plastic surgery techniques developed during and after the First World War, can be seen at the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

Doctoral opportunity

2009-08-03T19:51:00.002+01:00

The Centre for Medical Humanities, School of Medicine and Health at Durham University offers a fully funded three year doctoral scholarship in philosophy of medicine to consider the nature of the relationships among music, embodiment, health and well-being.

Music’s therapeutic potential is widely sought within formal clinical ‘music therapies,’ which are the subject of a considerable body of educational, psychological and health services research; the neurological substrates of musical experience are also investigated by neuro-scientific research. However such researches are relatively disconnected from philosophical understandings of music and of embodiment. As part of its five-year Wellcome Trust Strategic Award programme ‘Medicine and Human Flourishing,’ the Centre for Medical Humanities wishes to pursue philosophical understandings of the experience of music in the context of embodiment, and into the nature and meaning of musical experience and its relation to our sense and experience of our own embodied nature. Existing educational, health services and neurological research may be reconsidered in relation to the philosophical work as it develops.

Applications are invited from candidates with a first-class degree in Philosophy and relevant interests pertaining to music, embodiment and well-being. The work will be primarily supervised by Professor H Martyn Evans (Professor of Humanities in Medicine, Centre for Medical Humanities) in association with Professor Max Paddison of the Department of Music, whose research interests include philosophy of music and music therapy.

Further details about the research opportunity are available from Professor Evans (h.m.evans@durham.ac.uk). Further information about the work of the Centre for Medical Humanities is available at www.dur.ac.uk/cmh and information about work on music therapy at the Department of Music is available from Professor Paddison (m.h.paddison@durham.ac.uk) or at the Department’s website www.dur.ac.uk/music.
Applications must be made on line. Full details available from: http://www.dur.ac.uk/school.health/postgraduate/apply/

Closing date for receipt of applications: 31st August 2009

Read more: http://scholarship-positions.com/wellcome-trust-doctoral-studentship-centre-for-medical-humanities-durham-university/2009/08/02/#ixzz0N9CbSXPf

Tribute to Dr Cecil Helman

2009-06-17T12:32:00.002+01:00

I was very sad to hear that Dr Cecil Helman died yesterday after a short illness. I first got to know Cecil at a Medical Humanities conference about 6 years ago. I had just been sent a copy of his book, 'Suburban Shaman' -- it was not yet then published in Britain. We had a fascinating discussion about which aspects of the South African edition might need to be changed for a British audience (should a 'station wagon' be referred to as an 'estate car'?). We became friends. Cecil came and gave a lively session on my Medical Humanities course at Imperial for several years. This year he cried off, explaining that he was experiencing minor problems with his vocal chords. Tragically, the problems did not prove minor, but were a symptom of motor neurone disease.

Cecil specialised in medical anthropology. His textbook 'Culture, Health and Illness' has seen numerous editions, and he wrote many other seminal books and papers. But he also turned his hand to poetry, philosophy and fiction. 'Suburban Shaman' is a witty and profound memoir of his training and experiences as a GP. Cecil was never anything less than forthright. He managed to tread on quite a few toes as a consequence of his scepticism of institutional processes. But alongside his individualism, he was profoundly interested in the welfare of communities and individuals. He was fascinated by people and their stories and he had a real gift for passing those stories on, through his lectures and writings.

Cecil was a one-off. He delighted in being deliberately subversive. I remember him at conference flummoxing a presenter by proceeding to provide a detailed medical diagnoses of the subject of a portrait, in direct contradiction of everything that had just been said about the role of observation in medicine. 'I just wanted to see how she would handle it,' he said afterwards, with a characteristic twinkle in his eye.

Cecil added a great deal of flavour to the Medical Humanities scene in London, and, gosh, I will miss him.

'Pulse' exhibition featured on podcast

2009-06-09T10:00:00.007+01:00

Elizabeth Hauke has put together a very nice item on the 'Pulse' exhibition featured on the monthly Imperial College Podcast. Download it here. Anjani Knoebel's work (pictured below) is one of the artworks discussed.

'Pulse'

2009-05-04T14:43:00.007+01:00

This painting by fourth-year medical student Priya Garg is a response to examining and taking a medical history from a torture victim. 'When I presented the case to the consultant he believed, rightly or wrongly, that the circumstances of the injury were not important,' says Priya, 'whereas I felt it was vital to see illness in the context of the patient narrative.' Every year students of Medical Humanities at Imperial College London hold an exhibition of artworks they have created as part of the course. This year's exhibition, curated by Mindy Lee, is in the Blyth Gallery, level 5, Sherfield, runs from 13 to 28 May. The official opening is on 12 May at 7.30 pm. Everybody welcome!

Tribute to UA Fanthorpe

2009-04-30T21:59:00.003+01:00

Today I came home to a wonderful fat cardboard package on my doorstep: the result of an indulgent splurge on Amazon. The parcel included a volume from my wish list, long wanted but a pleasure postponed. However, two days ago, I’d decided it was indispensable and placed my order: Collected Poems of UA Fanthorpe. I spent a happy few hours dipping into this substantial anthology this afternoon, savouring familiar poems and relishing newfound treasures. Frustrated by the sketchy foreword, and half thinking how nice it would be to invite Fanthorpe to Purple Coat Club, I reached for that trusty tool of all things biographical, Wikipedia, to gauge the poet’s current coordinates. How shocking to see, at the base of her entry, ‘Ursula Fanthorpe died on 28 April 2009’. BBC website confirmed it – the news released by her publisher today. What an unnerving coincidence.

I first across UA Fanthorpe’s poems in a musty library copy of an anthology of medical poetry. The poem was ‘Jobdescription: Medical Records’, a wry, subversive description of the qualities needed to overcome the lurking horrors in the ‘seamy insides of notes’. By emphasising the qualities not required in the potential applicant, the poem tells us so much about the poignancy of the job: ‘Weights of histories (puffy / for the truly ill, thin and clean / For childhood’s greenstick fractures) / Will not concern you’.

Fanthorpe worked as a hospital receptionist in Bristol which inspired her first volume of poetry in 1978. She says in the foreword to Collected Poems, ‘At once I’d found the subject that I’d been looking for all my life: the strangeness of other people, particularly neurological patients, and how it felt to be them, and to use their words.’ Her Casehistory poems ‘Julie (encephalitis)’ and ‘Alison (head injury)’ speak to the alienation of brain damage: ‘I would have liked to have known / My husband’s wife, my mother’s only daughter’ (from ‘Alison’).

Having set ‘After Visiting Hours’ recently as an essay topic, to be contrasted with Sylvia Plath’s ‘Tulips’, my thoughts have been much preoccupied with this beautiful poem in which a hospital becomes a refuge from the ‘calling gulls’ of visitors, in which staff and patients carefully dance their way through ‘Their repertoire of movements’. I hope Fanthorpe found her last days in a hospice as soothing as the environment she conjures up for the shuffling, glass-bodied patients in this poem.

Although I have mentioned some of the medical poems here, Fanthorpe wrote on a huge range of topics, from Shakespeare to pets, university life to Christmas. Many of them are suffused with a gentle humour, others are more sharply acerbic. I’ve never met a Fanthorpe poem I haven’t liked. I am glad to have been thinking so much of her during her final days. She came to public attention in 2003 as rival to Andrew Motion for Poet Laureate, but I still feel she is underrated. I'm confident that UA Fanthorpe will come to be remembered as one of our greatest poets.

Call for Papers: The Drew University Journal of Medical Humanities (DMH)

2009-04-16T18:01:00.001+01:00

The Drew University Journal of Medical Humanities (DMH) is looking for submissions for its second edition on the topic of healthcare disparities.

Suggested threads include:
Health/illness/access to care and social disparities (e.g.: urban versus rural communities)
Health/illness/access to care and racial/ethnic disparities
Heath/illness/access to care and socioeconomic disparities
Health/illness/access to care and disparities with regard to other demographic information (e.g.: gender, age, etc.)
Healthcare as a right
Social justice v. market justice
Health care reform that might respond to or rectify the above disparities

We welcome discussions on these topics from the standpoints of bioethics, public health, medical anthropology, health policy, medical narrative, and history of medicine. As medical humanities is highly interdisciplinary, we encourage submissions from whatever your field of expertise. We hope this edition of DMH will offer a greater understanding of the issues that we face as a national community in trying to determine what health care justice encompasses.

Mission Statement:
The Drew University Journal of Medical Humanities (DMH) publishes peer-reviewed, original research of an interdisciplinary nature, aimed at breaking down conventional boundaries, bridging the gaps between the humanities, social science, technology, medical education, and public policy, and inviting an honest discussion about the human experience of illness and the need for a more humane approach to health care. DMH, like the field of Medical Humanities as a whole, is committed to infusing medical education and practice with ethical, historical, social, and cultural meaning. DMH engages and informs scholars across all disciplines, health care professionals, health care consumers, medical educators, and policy-makers. Giving a platform to a range of diverse voices, DMH publishes articles that advance the work of Medical Humanities in general as well as articles that focus on special issues or symposia topics. Submitted manuscripts undergo a rigorous peer-review and editorial procedure to ensure the academic integrity of all published work.

Please send a statement of intent to Managing Editors Elizabeth Fehsenfeld (efehsenf@drew.edu) and Katie Grogan (kgrogan@drew.edu). Manuscripts should be submitted no later than June 12, 2009 and will be reviewed by members of the editorial advisory board. Manuscripts should be formatted in Microsoft Word or WordPerfect, with one inch margins and twelve point font, and should be in the range of 2500 to 3500 words. All copy, including quotations, footnotes, and references should conform to the guidelines of the Chicago Manual of Style, Fifteenth Edition. Please include a cover sheet with: name, title, address, phone number, email address, affiliation. Submissions can be emailed to the managing editors or mailed to:
Editor—Drew University Journal of Medical Humanities
Caspersen School of Graduate Studies
Drew University
Madison, New Jersey 07940-4000
U.S.A.

Author talks at the Wellcome Collection

2009-04-01T17:45:00.005+01:00

How exciting! The Wellcome Collection is starting a programme of author-led evenings, with writers coming to the Library to discuss their work. Both events are free, although booking in advance is advised to secure a place.

The first event on Thursday 23 April, 19.00-20.30 will feature Philip Hoare. In his 2001 book 'Spike Island', Philip Hoare drew on the resources of the Wellcome Library as part of his attempt to reclaim the memory of a vast Victorian military hospital at Netley (pictured above), on the shores of Southampton Water, close to where he grew up. In this lecture, Hoare will use archive images and film to re-imagine Netley's history through its ruins, and the disparate and sometimes surprising company of men and women who worked or visited there: from Queen Victoria and Florence Nightingale to Almroth Wright, Wilfred Owen, Noel Coward and RD Laing. Details of the event, and how to book a free ticket, here.

The second will feature Mike Jay discussing his new work on Thomas Beddoes, 'The Atmosphere of Heaven'. on Thursday 21 May, 19.00-20.30. At the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol, founded in the closing years of the eighteenth century, dramatic experiments with gases precipitated a revolution not only in scientific medicine but also in the modern mind. Propelled by the energy of maverick doctor Thomas Beddoes, the Institution was both laboratory and hospital - the first example of a medical research institution. But when its researchers discovered the mind-altering properties of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, their experiments devolved into a pioneering exploration of consciousness, with far-reaching and unforeseen effects. Beddoes' papers were destroyed around the time of his death. Jay's latest work has drawn heavily on the remaining sources the Wellcome Library holds, including the journal Hygeia, and the 'Manual of Health' textbook to tell the story of Beddoes and the brilliant circle who surrounded him. The event will discuss the chaotic rise and fall of the Institution, and reveals for the first time its crucial influence - on modern drug culture, attitudes toward objective and subjective knowledge, the development of anaesthetic surgery, and the birth of the Romantic movement. Details here.

Two Mad Docs

2009-02-27T09:27:00.003Z

Yesterday we went to see 'Two Mad Docs', an exhibition in little gallery tucked under the arches of Loughborough Junction Station. The Red Gate Gallery is an intimate space. The exhibition consists of eight canvases and 19 photographs. The canvases are by Nora Rahmen, all painted using just her fingers. Subjects deal with balance and connectivity. Using no more than two or three colours, they are dramatic and interesting.

The photographs are by hand surgeon Vaikunthan Rajaratnam. These are not for the squeamish! Admittedly, the almost-overpowering smell of the freshly painted walls might have contributed to the stomach-churning effect they had on me. There is an element of fascination in seeing the delicacy of nerves and tendons. It also gave a good sense of the skill needed in performing hand surgery.

The title 'Two Mad Docs' is a misnomer. There is nothing mad about the work on show here, except perhaps the price list for the photographs: at £115, I suspect that a photograph of a 'small cut on the hand of a chef' showing tendon and nerve damage is going to be a hard sell. A few of the photographs are very artistic and have an aesthetic appeal, but most look like they belong in a text book. That's not to say that they don't belong in an art exhibition -- it's a nice rendering of the multiple meanings of 'art'.

As the blurb says, these doctors spend much of their waking hours 'caring for their patients and with little time and opportunity for creativity'. Being able to put on an exhibition, however small, is a real achievement. It's good to see the value of creativity being recognised.

Masters Studentships in History of Medicine

2009-02-23T12:25:00.002Z

The School of Historical Studies at Newcastle University is pleased to advertise between 4 and 6 Masters Studentship Awards for postgraduate study in Newcastle’s Wellcome Trust recognised MA programme in the History of Medicine during the academic year 2009-10. The closing date for applications is 30 April 2009.

The stipends for these awards will be set as follows: Two studentships will be awarded at either £15,000 (including home/EU fees) for full-time home/EU students, or £20,000 (including international fees) for full-time non-EU students of outstanding merit; the other studentships will be awarded at either £5,000 (including home/EU-fees) for meritorious full-time home/EU students, or £10,000 (including international fees) for non-EU students. Part time studentships will be awarded to meritorious applicants at c. half the above rate per annum.

The studentships are funded by the Northern Centre for the History of Medicine and will be available as of September 2009. The Northern Centre is a partnership between the Universities of Newcastle and Durham, and is supported by the Wellcome Trust. Successful applicants will join the postgraduate community based at the School of Historical Studies at Newcastle University. Postgraduate teaching and research supervision in the History of Medicine at Newcastle is delivered by scholars with established international reputations in the field.

The MA in the History of Medicine incorporates 3 compulsory formal research training components (30 credits), during which students develop research skills and methodologies; a compulsory core module ‘Introduction to the History of Medicine’ (30 credits), and 2 special study options (60 credits); and it culminates in the completion of an intensively researched 14,000 word dissertation (60 credits). Study consists mainly of seminars, tutorials, workshops and independent learning.

The programme provides the necessary research training that will either link into further PhD and postgraduate academic study, or act as a stand alone MA. Candidates who have successfully completed the programme will be eligible to take part in the annual Wellcome Trust PhD studentship competition. The MA also provides the key skills and training for a wide range of careers both within and outside of Higher Education.

Eligibility: Applications for the studentship are invited from highly motivated graduates from various backgrounds including the Humanities and Social Sciences (e.g. History, Classics, Philosophy, Literature, Religious Studies, Archaeology, Psychology, Sciences, Sociology etc.). Applicants require a good (or predicted) undergraduate degree result (1st or high 2:1) in such a subject. Candidates with a medical background are also strongly encouraged to apply, and the studentship is open to current stage 4 Newcastle medical students who have opted to take the MA in the History of Medicine as an intercalated degree after stage 4 MBBS. Applications from overseas candidates with equivalent qualifications are also very welcome.

Application procedure: Applicants are asked to send: i) a CV and list of academic qualifications and experience; ii) a personal statement and letter of application outlining reasons for wanting to pursue postgraduate study in the history of medicine at Newcastle and highlighting specific research interests (max 300 words), iii) copies of any relevant certificates and transcripts, and (iv) letters of recommendation from two academic referees. Applications should be sent to the Postgraduate Secretary, Ms Sandra Fletcher, School of Historical Studies, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, to arrive no later than 30 April 2009.

For specific inquiries about the studentships and about the MA programme please contact:
Prof. P.J. van der Eijk
Degree Programme Director, MA in History of Medicine
School of Historical Studies & Northern Centre for the History of Medicine,
Newcastle UniversityArmstrong Building
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
tel: (direct) 0191 222 8262;
email: philip.van-der-eijk@ncl.ac.uk

For more information on the MA programme in History of Medicine at Newcastle see
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/historical/postgrad/taught/ma_medicine.htm
For more information on the subject of History of Medicine at Newcastle see
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/historical/medicine/index.htm
For more information on the Northern Centre for the History of Medicine see
http://www.nchm.ac.uk/
For information about postgraduate study in the School of Historical Studies contact the School's Postgraduate Secretary, Mrs Sandra Fletcher, at , tel. (+)44.191.2227966.

Prof. P. J. van der Eijk
School of Historical Studies
Newcastle University
Armstrong Building
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
UK

tel: (direct line) +44 (0) 191 222 8262
Email: philip.van-der-eijk@ncl.ac.uk
Visit the website at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/historical/postgrad/taught/ma_medicine.htm
(h/t H-DISABILITY listserv)

Photographing patients

2009-02-12T12:43:00.006Z

There is a thoughtful essay on the ethics of photographing patients over at the Literature, Arts and Medicine Blog. Ana Bhlom raises a number of interesting issues, not only about privacy but about intellectual ownership and the dissolving of boundaries between fictionalisation and integrity.

She says: 'The ethical question in writing fiction, non-fiction, and creative non-fiction, is not necessarily about the propriety of using your patients as inspiration for artistic work–it has more to do with the subsequent dissemination of your aesthetic output. The issue becomes one of privacy and of authorship. If privacy is protected by changing recognizable facts, then at what point are the particulars altered so much that the distinction between fiction and non-fiction becomes absurd? If the fiction is tinted with the hue of a real interaction, then is the physician-writer guilty of thieving from her patients for the benefit of her characters?'

It's a good question, and good to see awareness being raised of this important issue. Sometimes anonymising patients and fictionalising details is disempowering in its appropriation of patients' stories. Yet, the uses to which images are put is increasingly difficult to control in a cut-and-paste world, and the meaning of image is dependent far more on its context than its content. Conversations about the way both stories and images are used need to be had, if possible, at the bedside. Bhlom's collaborative approach suggests a good way forward in negotiating the murky waters of documenting the patient encounter outside of a strictly medical environment.

Jo Spence (pictured) pointed out that the kinds of family snapshots we take tend to be present a very partial view of our lives. Family albums are filled with 'say cheese' type pictures. Illness is often a life-transforming experience and perhaps ought to be acknowledged in family histories more than it tends to be at the moment. How lovely that Ana Bhlom's patients often choose to display her photographs on their walls.

The Unquiet Bones: review

2009-01-29T13:42:00.002Z

'The Unquiet Bones' is not a book I'd usually choose (not being a big fan of historical crime fiction), but one of the joys of being a disciple of Medical Humanities is that it takes me to plays and films I wouldn't otherwise see, and encourages me to read books I wouldn't otherwise have considered. Melvin Starr's first novel introduces Hugh de Singleton, fictional medieval surgeon in the real-life Oxfordshire village of Bampton.

The author, Melvin Starr, is an American scholar of medieval surgery and English, but I am relieved to say that this novel bears no hint of dry academic discourse. It is written in prosaic, no-nonsense style, with an emphasis on moving the plot along. Written in the first person, Hugh de Singleton turns out to be an affable chap, eager to please his patron, Lord Gilbert. When the bones of a young girl are found in Gilbert's castle cesspit, Hugh is commissioned to play detective to solve the mystery. Read the first chapter here.

While undoubtedly a page-turner, 'The Unquiet Bones' reads a little like a potential script for a TV drama: long on dialogue and short on description. Rather too many sentences start with 'I' in quick succession, and there is little to explain Hugh's remarkable medical acumen and experience given he is new to the job. In short, I would have liked more literariness! However, the story has a twist or two and I found myself rooting for the modest Hugh, especially in his aspiring to the beautiful Lady Joan who is way above his station. Billed as the 'first chronicle', there is obviously more to look forward to.

Other historical series with a medical slant are the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters (I can really recommend the audiobooks of these which are beautifully read by Stephen Thorne, complete with lyrical Welsh cadences), and the delightful Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. Peabody is redoubtable Victorian archaeologist with a modicum of medical skill and a considerable ego.

Graphic books on medicine

2009-01-29T12:48:00.004Z

It just has to be the coolest topic ever for an MA in Medical Humanities: investigating medical narratives in comics (or 'graphic fiction' as it has come to be known). The man with this enviable task is Ian Williams is a GP, an artist, and now a student at Swansea University. Graphic novels are fascinating for their potent combination of image and text. The first one I came across was 'Mom's Cancer' (reviewed on this blog here). This is a growing genre of pathography: Williams currently lists 24 books on his website. Just this week, Matthew Johnstone and his wife Ainsley were talking on Radio 4's Midweek about their new illustrated self-help guide on depression (aimed mainly at carers) called 'Living with the Black Dog'.

Williams has launched a beautifully designed (as one might expect) website as a resource for health professionals, http://www.graphicmedicine.org/, dedicated to reviewing and discussing
graphic books with a medical theme. Inspired by Arthur Frank's notion of 'The Wounded Storyteller', Williams believes that these books are examples of how sharing the profound experience of illness with others is often part of a healing process. He argues that it is high time that graphic fiction was taken seriously, suggesting that comics and graphic novels could play a valuable role in:

Reflecting or changing cultural perceptions of medicine
Relating the patient/carer/provider experience
Enabling discussion of difficult subjects
Helping other sufferers or carers

Although studying comics and graphic books sounds like fun in the name of academia, these books are often harrowing, made all the more poignant by the use of the comic-strip format with its often-ironic 'punchline'.

We wish Ian all the best with his studies and look forward to reading about his conclusions.

Celebrities And Aid: New Humanitarians or Just Another Fad?

2009-01-19T11:05:00.003Z

We are delighted to invite you to a public debate organised by the LSE Centre for Civil Society and Médecins Sans Frontières as part of the Lent Term Public Events programme at the London School of Economics.

Celebrities And Aid: New Humanitarians or Just Another Fad?
Date: Thursday 5th February 2009
Time: 6.30-8pmVenue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Lisa Ann Richey, John Street, Kris Torgeson
Chair: Dr Armine Ishkanian

Why do charities use celebrities to speak out on humanitarian action? Who do celebrities represent? Are they genuinely committed to the causes they espouse or have causes become another path to self-promotion? These are some of the issues that our panellists debate.

Lisa Ann Richey is Associate Professor of International Studies at Roskilde University. John Street is a Professor of Politics at the University of East Anglia. Kris Torgeson is the International Secretary for the Médecins Sans Frontières International Office.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. Information about coming to LSE can be found on the LSE website or by calling the LSE Events Office on 020 7955 6043 .

Frames of Mind

2008-12-16T21:45:00.003Z

'Broach schizophrene'Brian Charnley (1949-1991)

Frames of Mind: Creativity in Mental Healthcare Exhibition

Discover historic artworks of international renown from the collections of Bethlem Royal Hospital, the original Bedlam, alongside contemporary artworks created by artists supported by the Bethlem Gallery. Over 30 different artists are represented including Richard Dadd, William Kurelek, Stanley Lench, Jonathan Martin, Marion Patrick, Cynthia Pell, Charles Sims and Louis Wain. The main gallery is dedicated to the display of 50 paintings, drawings, digital images, sculptures and ceramics dating from the early nineteenth century to the present day. All of these remarkable works have been created by people who have experienced mental health problems. Also in this gallery you can see videos of artists working with Bethlem Gallery and listen to oral history interviews with mental health service users and providers. In the smaller gallery you can discover the history of mental healthcare from the foundation of Bethlem Hospital in 1247 to the present day. A timeline illustrates the individual and linked histories of Bethlem Royal Hospital, Warlingham Park Hospital and Cane Hill Hospital. You can also find out more about the art-based care services provided in Croydon today.

FREE exhibition in the Clocktower's Temporary Exhibition Gallery. 10 October 2008 - 31 January 2009 Monday - Saturday, 11am - 5pm

East Croydon is 15 minutes on the train from Victoria and the Clocktower Gallery is a 5 minute walk from there. Check here for more information on how to find the gallery.

The Cultural Ramifications of an Ultrasound

2008-12-16T14:50:00.000Z

This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of Online Ultrasound Technician Schools. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com.

You’d think there wouldn’t be a cultural side to a technology that helps look inside your body, but there is, at least in certain parts of the world. An ultrasound scan is a technique that uses sound waves, or to be more precise, ultrasound which has a high frequency and hence cannot be heard by human ears, to create images of organs in your body. The sound waves bounce off body structures and are then compiled by a computer program into images.

Ultrasound is used for a variety of applications and is the preferred form of medical imaging except when there’s bone or gas-filled organs like the lung and bowel to be scanned. It finds extensive use in pregnancy, to monitor the growth of the fetus at different stages and to determine the sex of the baby. And that’s where the cultural aspect comes into play.

Now most people are ok with either a boy or a girl baby; sure, they may have their preferences, but they’re happy with either one if they’re healthy and normal. But there are some parts of the world where a boy child is considered an asset and a girl a liability – China for one, and India for another. With selective sex abortion being a widespread practice in both countries, the respective governments have banned the revelation of the sex of the fetus following an ultrasound examination. But female fetuses are still aborted, contributing to the widely skewed sex ratios in both countries.

In China, it’s an issue that relates to the large population of the country. With the government strictly enforcing the one-child law, parents want it to be a male so that their family name is carried on. Male children are also likely to earn money for the family and look after their parents in their old age.

In India, in addition to carrying on the family name, males are preferred because they are expected to look after their parents and help in the family business. Also, only males can perform certain rituals like last rites and they’re sure to bring dowry (gifts of cash and kind) when they marry. Females are not wanted because they are seen as a financial burden when they must be married – the parents tend to go broke trying to rustle up enough money to cover the dowry demanded by the groom’s family. Although dowry harassment is illegal in the country and punishable with fines and imprisonment, the practice still continues.

The cultural ramifications of a simple ultrasound exam extend as far as skewing the sex ratio of an entire nation. Although the technology is relatively new, it’s fast replacing female infanticide as the preferred method of selective sex abortion. And even though it’s illegal to reveal the sex of the fetus, some radiologists do so for the money, and the practice of selective abortion continues to plague both nations and a few others others in Asia.

Royal Society of Medicine Exhibition on Ancient Egyptian Medicine

2008-12-04T15:13:00.004Z

Currently on display in the RSM Library until the end of February. Opening hours: Monday - Thursday 9am - 7pm, Friday 9am - 5.30pm and Saturday 10am - 4.30pm

This major exhibition focuses on ancient Egyptian medicine. It deals with health and disease, how the ancient Egyptians treated and cured it. Find out about Imhotep, the Egyptian god of medicine, and learn about mummification.The displays also include some stunning casts of medical artefacts and scans of other objects from other institutions.

Summer 2009. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes.

A prizewinning travelling exhibition from the Royal College of Surgeons in Scotland.

Open source ECG project

2008-12-04T11:27:00.003Z

Here's an interesting new use of Web 2.0 (which encourages the web's potential for multiuser interactivity to create new knowledge) to benefit developing countries. The project aims to enable doctors all over the world to build their own affordable, safe and clinically useful ECGs. By making both the software and hardware solutions open source, it is hoped that a pooling of collective knowledge will result in a working product.

The brand new website is mainly wiki-based which means participants download, edit and upload pages so that, in theory at least, the latest improvements are always available. In my experience these types of collaborative open-source wikis tend to be a bit clunky and hard to navigate, but this site is very well designed and you needn't be particulary techy to use it.

These projects rely on 'goodwill' and a belief in the collectivism of scientific information over commercialism. It's represents a big shift in the way Western science - traditionally rather secretive to protect priority claims - is configured. The project seems to me to be a good idea and I hope that it succeeds.

Rhetorics of Plague: Early / Modern Trajectories of Biohazard

2008-11-02T19:38:00.002Z

A Symposium
University at Albany, SUNY
February 26-27, 2009

Call for Proposals

The threat of biological catastrophe—including that by AIDS, ebola, avian influenza, and species extinction—may seem the specific and daunting provenance of late 20th- and early 21st –century life, but it has in fact been a crucial part of history since ancient times. It is important to remember, for instance, that starting in the 14th century and extending well into the 18th, the bubonic plague (as the Black Death) ultimately took the lives of at least 35% of the entire population in Europe, as well as nearly that much in central Asia, killing an estimated total of 75 million people. Given these numbers, it could be argued that premodern and early modern cultures had even more at stake in articulating the role of plague—not to mention the related phenomena of cholera, syphilis, small pox, the so-called English Sweating Sickness, or extensive urban infestations, which are only a few of the shockwaves that preceded our own anxiety about spectacular biological disaster. This symposium therefore proposes rethinking the connections among recent models, representations, or biocultures of biological threat and their counterparts in the pre- and early modern eras.

A focus on the “rhetorics” of plague highlights the ways in which biological danger becomes conceptually organized, ethically ordered, or socio-politically oriented by the discourses that represent it. It also underscores the crossing or hybridization of discourses, such as the ways in which early views of medical pandemic, in the absence of a theory of germ contagion, could be linked to models of ecological or environmental dysfunction, or the manner in which disease of the body natural could metaphorize the maladies of the body politic. Furthermore, in addition to accounting for the interrelated scientific, literary, or philosophical conventions invoked by such discourses, it is important to acknowledge that, like the biological volatility they describe, discourses about plague can undergo their own kind of exponential proliferation, producing a potential plague of rhetorics. While such discourses may have predominantly originated in the metropolitan centers of Europe, there is also the need to account for their transformation or mutation when applied in non-Western or colonial contexts, as well as for the emergence of counter-discourses from non-European sources—such as China or the Middle East—that may have challenged European models of pandemic explanation, particularly as they have undergirded imperial ambitions.

The University at Albany, SUNY, calls for proposals that forge connections between 21st-century contexts and pre- and early modern periods (up to ca.1820) as a way to foster fruitful conversations across disciplinary, national, ethnic, geographical, and historical boundaries. Papers may take up recent work on biohazards, for example, to rethink responses to plague in early periods; conversely, papers may consider what early manifestations of and responses to plague tell us about current pandemic episodes, whether real or imagined, including biohazard as political trope. We welcome approaches from the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities and encourage cross-cultural and transhistorical work; papers focusing on biohazard discourses prior to the nineteenth century are particularly desirable. We encourage contributions from graduate students or nonacademics who may be working in areas such as the history of medicine, healthcare, and ecological analysis.

All participants in the symposium will have the opportunity to submit expanded versions of their presentations for consideration as part of a special journal issue planned for publication. More details will soon appear on the symposium website.
More information about the symposium can be found at a link at the Albany Department of English website: http://www.albany.edu/english.

Paper proposals (1-2 pages) should be sent to Professor Helene Scheck, hscheck@albany.com, or Professor Richard Barney, rbarney@albany.edu, by no later than December 10, 2008.

Plenary Speakers:

Kathleen Biddick, Professor, Temple University, on plague, sovereignty, and 21st-century political theory
Graham Hammill, Associate Professor, University of Buffalo, on the biopolitics of disease during the 17th century
Robert Markley, Professor and Romano Professorial Scholar, University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana, on ecological disaster and disease in 18th-century Britain

Topics to be considered at the symposium include:
How recent logics of epidemic, trauma, virology, or retrovirology find application to or analogues in earlier historical patterns or discourses; how recent logics continue to rely on and/or transform older models of plague, contamination, or disease.
The aesthetics of infection; the poetics of contagion.
The multiplicity of diseases as generator for “plagues of rhetoric”—uncontrolled proliferation of competing definitions, descriptions, or discourses; or, in turn, the disseminating tendencies of scientific discourse as an engine for an exponential explosion of apparent symptoms, biological entities, ecological effects.
The investment of medical or ecological models of pandemic thinking in juridical, legal, political, literary, social, educational, or other pre- and early modern domains.
The role of pandemic rhetoric in the management of early modern colonial enterprise or imperial conquest; the relevance of similar biological discourses in postcolonial or recently globalized contexts.
The function of counter-discourses of pandemic that emerged from non-Western sources—China, the Middle East, the South Pacific, etc.—in response to European scientific, political, or colonial efforts.
The insertion of theological, political, or sociological methodologies into scientific efforts to diagnose massive medical or ecological dysfunction.
Philosophy and/as pandemic.
The animal—e.g., the bird or rodent—as liminal figure of pandemic transportation or translation: as biological “other” and/or as ambiguous representative of anthropomorphized nature.
The transformation of authoritative theological or moral paradigms by emerging scientific analyses of pandemic or contagion.
The scientific empiricism of spiritual/moral depravity; the spiritualization of scientifically observed biological threat.
The literature of pandemic (e.g., Bocaccio’s Decameron, Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year); the literary as pandemic (e.g., romance, the novel, “scribbling women,” Gothicism).
“Modernity”—pre-, early, or post- —as vital historical threshold or suspect analytical crux for narrating the development of plague rhetorics.
The interpenetration of biology and culture—termed “bioculture” in a recent special issue of New Literary History (38.3 [Summer 2007])—as a peculiarly postmodern feature of biological threat, or an emergent pattern in pre- and early modern contexts.

Cancer Tales -- review

2008-10-17T11:34:00.005+01:00

It sounds like a potentially morbid outing -- watching extracts from a play about cancer. However, the performance from 'Cancer Tales' at the RSM last week provided an interesting and informative insight, not only into various aspects of illness, but also into the power of drama to convey concepts with intimacy and immediacy. On Friday night, we heard Clare's story of being diagnosed with uterine cancer (played by Laura Fitzpatrick, pictured), and Mary's story of coping with a teenage daughter who has leukaemia.

The script is based on transcripts of conversations of the playwright, Nell Dunn, had with patients. Much of the dialogue is delivered to the audience soliloquy style, but there are also scenes played out that show different aspects of communication, both positive and negative. The four actors pitched their performances perfectly in what was quite a difficult environment -- a raked lecture theatre with the house lights up.

After the performance, there was a panel discussion with Julian Walker (the director), Nell Dunn (the playwright), Jed Mercurio (former doctor and author of Bodies and Cardiac Arrest) and Anna Ford (newsreader, who has had several experiences of losing loved ones to cancer). The panel was very well balanced, with everyone having a valuable contribution to make to the discussion and in response to various questions from the audience.

Although primarily aimed at helping health care professionals to communicate better, 'Cancer Tales' has a lot to offer patients and relatives. It ought to have a wider audience, and I think it would make a series of brilliant radio plays.

There is a beautifully produced workbook to accompany the plays called Cancer Tales: Communicating in Cancer Care which integrates the script with research on topics like breaking bad news, pain relief and coping mechanisms.

Thanks Lauren Trisk, for organising a very stimulating evening.

Crossing Over Exchanges

2008-10-15T13:51:00.002+01:00

Crossing Over Exchanges in Art and Biotechnology is an exciting new exhibition at The Royal Institute of Great Britain (2 Oct - 21 Nov). The contemporary art on show addresses the highly topical subject of genetic manipulation and bioengineering. Bringing together art, design and science, artworks by thirteen artists and designers investigate the metaphors, potentialities and anxieties of this uch debated area. The exhibition is free and open 9am to 9pm Monday to Friday. Find out more here and here.

The Wellcome Trust Book Prize

2008-10-15T11:41:00.001+01:00

From a Wellcome Trust press release:

What do Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, Jean-Dominique Bauby’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Ian McEwan’s Saturday have in common? All three acclaimed works would have met the criteria for a major new book prize launching today.

The Wellcome Trust Book Prize is open to outstanding works of fiction and non-fiction on the theme of health, illness or medicine. The £25,000 annual award, created by the Wellcome Trust, is the first of its kind to bring together the traditionally diverse fields of medicine and literature.

Comedienne and former psychiatric nurse Jo Brand will act as Chair of the 2009 judging panel which includes BBC science journalist Quentin Cooper, Welsh poet and non-fiction writer Gwyneth Lewis, physician and author Raymond Tallis and Professor of Medicine in the Arts Brian Hurwitz.

Jo Brand says: “Good and bad health are pretty fundamental to all our lives, so it's no surprise these themes crop up fairly often in literature too. The Wellcome Trust Book Prize recognises writers who have incorporated medicine in such a way as to really engage readers with the subject, exploring our understanding of what it means to be healthy or sick. I'm sure there are going to be plenty of wonderful books for me and the other judges to read. I just hope we can reach a final decision without too much damage to our own health."

The prize will be open to books published in the UK and works published in English translation.

A shortlist of six works will be announced at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival in October 2009.

The winner will be announced at a prestigious ceremony in November 2009 at the Wellcome Collection in London – the Wellcome Trust’s renowned cultural venue for Medicine, Life and Art.

Clare Matterson, Director of Medicine, Society and History at the Wellcome Trust, comments: "There's always been a thirst for books that combine excellent writing with accurate and compelling medical stories.

We hope this prize will stimulate even more interest, excitement and debate about medicine and literature. Our award reflects the Wellcome Trust's aim to broaden the appeal of medicine and reach new audiences - from literature lovers to science enthusiasts alike."

To find out more, visit http://www.wellcomebookprize.org

Battle of Ideas Festival

2008-10-13T11:24:00.002+01:00

This year’s Battle of Ideas, a two-day festival of social, political and cultural discussion taking place in London, 1 & 2 November 2008. Tickets are on sale now.

There is a Battle for Biomedicine strand and there are other science and medicine-related debates:

Battle for Biomedicine
Whose data is it anyway?
Boozy Britain
Hypochondriac Nation

Related sessions
Abortion: the hard arguments
Are we what we eat?
CSI Mania
Can GM crops feed the world?
Health promotion: improving children’s lives or demonising parents?
Are drugs ruining sport?
Is our behaviour determined by our evolution?
Trust me – I’m a professional

According to Claire Fox, whom you may recognise as a regular member of the panel on R4's 'The Moral Maze': 'The Battle of Ideas is a space where ideas can be argued for and fought over without constraint. Free speech allowed! The Battle of Ideas is in its fourth year and is now a major fixture in London’s intellectual calendar. This year over 1500 expected attendees will attend 70 sessions with 300 speakers, as well as a number of festival attractions and exhibitions.' The Battle of Ideas was described by Chris Rapley, director of the Science Museum, as ‘a rare opportunity to debate first hand with those involved in the great issues of our time’.

As well as the Battle for Biomedicine, this year’s strands examine cutting-edge debates around Prosperity (emerging economies), The Family and America.

Other highlights include:
Immigration – the more the scarier? / Stealing Picasso / From Fatwa to Jihad / Eco-imperialism? / Cricket – more than a game? / What is a city of literature? / CSI Mania / Credit crunch demystified / Scared of the Kids / Malthus’ return…

The festival has sold out in advance for three years running, so you may want to get tickets as soon as possible. The event is held at the Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU and is organised by the Institute of Ideas in conjunction with SAB Miller, BT, The Times/Times Online, and the ESRC, alongside many other partners and sponsors.

Performing Medicine Season

2008-10-01T09:15:00.007+01:00

What a treat for those interested in Medical Humanities! Performing Medicine is a wonderful series of events, including debates, art performances, workshops and a symposium on the uses of arts in medical training. Here is the full programme, or visit their official website.

CONVERSATIONS

Power
With Faith McLellan, Brian Hurwitz, Elaine Showalter, Thomas Csordas
30 October 7-9pm Free
Wellcome Collection, 83 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE
More information
Book Online Tel: 020 7611 2222

Health and Human Rights With Richard Ashcroft, Paul Heritage, Vivienne Nathanson, Nick Ridout
5 November 7-9pm Free
Dana Centre, Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2DD
More information

The Medical Gaze With Bobby Baker and Kira O'Reilly
2 December 7-9pm £10 (£8 conc)
Starr Auditorium, Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG
More information

The Invention of the Body With Sarah Simblet
4 December 7-9pm Free
Wellcome Collection, 83 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE
More information
Book Online Tel: 020 7611 2222

Embodiment With Antonio Damasio and guest artists
11 December 7-9pm £10 (£8 concessions)
Starr Auditorium, Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG
More information

ART INJECTIONS

Ether Frolics Sound and Fury with Artists from the Shunt Collective
3 November 8pm Free
John Ellis Lecture Theatre, Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel Road, London E1 1BB
More information Book Online Tel: 020 7749 0555

What Tammy needs to know about getting old and having sex Lois Weaver
17 November 8pm Free
John Ellis Lecture Theatre, Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel Road, London E1 1BB
More information Book Online Tel: 020 7749 0555

Must Peggy Shaw and the Clod Ensemble
27, 29 & 30 November 7-9pm
Free
Wellcome Collection, 83 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE
More information

Ball Brian Lobel
9 December 8pm Free
John Ellis Lecture Theatre, Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel Road, London E1 1B
More information Book Online Tel: 020 7749 0555

WORKSHOPS

The Expressive Body With John Wright and Suzy Willson
8 November 10am-5pm Free
Sadler's Wells, Rosebery Avenue, London EC1R 4TN
More information Book Online Tel: 020 7749 0555

Difference With Split Britches and Dr. Alison Mears
19 November 10am-5pm Free
Wellcome Collection,
83 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE
More information Book Online Tel: 020 7749 0555

Ways of Seeing With Liz Ellis
20 November 2-4pm Free
Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG
More information Book Online Tel: 020 7749 0555

Making Art in Healthcare Settings With Deborah Padfield, Helen Marshall and Rosetta Life
22 November 10am-5pm Free
Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG
More information Book Online Tel: 020 7749 0555

Anatomical Art With Sarah Simblet
5th December 10am-5pm Free
Wellcome Collection,
83 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE
More information Book Online Tel: 020 7749 0555

SYMPOSIUM

The Uses of Arts in Medical Training
21 November 10am-6pm £150 per delegate
Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry,
Turner Street, London E1 2AD
More information Contact us Tel: 020 7749 0555

EXTRA CURRICULAR OPEN PROGRAMME

The Recovery Room
Every Monday from 6 October - 8 December 1-2pm
Free
Room 3.04, Garrod Building (Old Medical College Building)
More information No booking required

How Do I Look?
From September 2008 Free
More information Contact us for an appointment

'Cancer Tales'

2008-09-25T21:43:00.002+01:00

Posted on behalf of Lauren Trisk:

Just wanted to let you know about an evening of theatre and debate I am organising at the Royal Society of Medicine (1 Wimpole Street, W1G 0AE) on Friday 10th October (flyer attached). 'Cancer Tales', two short plays about women and their journey through cancer will be staged followed by a panel discussion/Q and A session and a wine reception.

The plays were written by Nell Dunn and a snippet from a review in the BMJ reads as follows: 'Five personal histories of pain, hopelessness, hope, resignation and love are the ingredients for Cancer Tales. There five real stories take us to to real problems. The monologues and dialogues are brilliantly written, transporting the audience into the minds and the lives of the characters.

The set is minimal, the play mesmerising' Both Nell Dunn and Trevor Walker, the play's director, will take part in a panel discussion on emotion and communication in a clinical setting after the staging of the plays. Professor Chris Fowler will be chairing the panel and the TV and news presenter Anna Ford and Jed Mercurio, a doctor turned author and screenwriter of the accliamed television series 'Bodies' will also sit on the panel.

Registration is from 6:30pm and the event starts at 7pm, followed by a wine reception at 8:40pm. Tickets cost £10 (£5 concessions) and can be booked online at https://icex.imperial.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.rsm.ac.uk/students/stg101.php It would be great to see you there!

Word of Mouth special on medical communication

2008-09-16T13:38:00.003+01:00

I thoroughly recommend an excellent edition of Radio 4's 'Word of Mouth' devoted to medical communication. It includes a lively discussion on the pros and cons of 'teaching' communication skills. Shockingly, most medical students emerge from medical school communicating less well than when they started, communication having become ritualised at the expense of sincerity.

The programme also includes a discussion on how pain is talked about. Is a 'menu' of pain words helpful or is it overly constraining? One patient, Elizabeth McClung, explained how she finds the medical repetoire of pain words very limited (stabbing, throbbing, burning, nagging, radiating) and unable to cope with patients' metaphors. There are no easy answers, but the programme is a thoughtful look at it all.

Nobel Textiles at the ICA

2008-09-10T19:09:00.003+01:00

14 September 2008 - 21 September 2008

Five Nobel-winning scientists have been paired with five textile designers as part of a two-year project between Central Saint Martins College and the Medical Research Council, and the result is Nobel Textiles: a brilliant week of exhibitions and events at the ICA and in St James's Park.

Five greenhouses in St James's Park will contain self-folding fabrics, urban food production, garden furniture and more, with further work in the digital studio and bar.

Philippa Brock has collaborated with Sir Aaron Klug (Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1982), responding with a collection of Jacquard weaves that explore the methods of transforming 2-dimensional weaving approaches into 3-dimensional models.

Carole Collet has collaborated with John Sulston (Nobel Prize for Medicine, 2002 with Sydney Brenner and Robert Horwitz), creating a collection of garden furniture based on the principles of programmed degradation.

Rachel Kelly has been working with Tim Hunt (Nobel Prize for Medicine, 2001), and has designed a collection of transparent wallpapers and paper lanterns responding to his discovery of cycling proteins which appear and disappear.

Shelley Fox has collaborated with Peter Mansfield (Nobel Prize for Medicine, 2003), and has created a fashion collection based on the MRI mapping of the body fat of 6 volunteers.

Rachel Wingfield has collaborated with John E. Walker (Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1997), to create architectural scale textiles that explore urban food production, in response to John’s elucidation of the tiny motor that cycles energy in our cells.

Check out the details here for a series of associated events.

Transplant

2008-09-09T09:22:00.002+01:00

Transplant is a large-scale photographic sound installation that explores the experiences of transplant patients and the extraordinary issues raised by this invasive, last-option medical procedure. Showing this month at the Nunnery Gallery from Friday 4th September, it creates an immersive environment, weaving subtly revealing portraits and striking photographs of the hospital with intensely personal narratives, often recorded at the bedside, and sounds derived from the patients’ surroundings.

Photographer Tim Wainwright and sound artist John Wynne were artists-in-residence together for one year at Harefield Hospital, one of the world’s leading centres for heart and lung transplants. Working closely together, they photographed and recorded patients, the devices they’re attached to or have implanted in them, and the hospital itself. In this ambitious new work, Wainwright and Wynne investigate the boundaries between documentation and abstraction and search for new relationships between sound and image.

“Through all these differences and similarities of sound and vision, seeing and hearing, looking and listening, a rapprochement emerges in the collaboration. The insistent stillness of a photograph hovers in and out of the temporal movement of spoken language, but both add a powerful sense of human presence and individuality to each other,” said David Toop.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication of a book edited by Victoria Hume, manager of rb&h Arts, an independent charity within Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust which made this project possible. Also entitled Transplant, the book contains perspectives on the artists’ work and on the wider issues raised by the project from a range of contributors including writer David Toop, critic Charles Darwent, medical researcher/writer Lesley Sharp, anthropologist Tom Rice, psychologist Claire Hallas and patient Kate Dalziel. The book also contains an exclusive interview with Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub, an interview with Tim and John by Angus Carlyle and a DVD by the artists.

The show runs until 28th September and is open Thursday - Sunday 1pm until 6pm. The Nunnery is at 183 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ. Nearest tube is Bow Road on the Dirstict Line.

Cutting-edge TV

2008-08-21T11:48:00.003+01:00

The BBC is showing an admirable commitment to medical history. Last year, there was a 30-part series, The Making of Modern Medicine, on Radio 4, doing for medicine what This Sceptred Isle did for the history of Britain. Last night, a new series started on BBC4: ‘Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery’. First up was a look at brain surgery.

The programme, presented by the engaging Michael Mosley, didn’t attempt to be exhaustive. It featured a few personal stories, mercifully sparing us from the ‘reconstructed by actors’ scenes that blight so many documentaries these days. I’m not usually squeamish, but Mosley demonstrating a transorbital lobotomy (basically hammering an icepick through the eye socket and rummaging about in the brain) was a ‘look away now’ moment. The well-meaning proselytiser of this hit-and-miss technique, Walter Freeman, travelled America in a camper van, lobotomising as he went. Even his son, who was interviewed, thought it ghastly.

Mosley tracked down one of Freeman’s victims, Howard, who at only 12 had been handed over for surgery by his evil stepmother. Howard gamely agreed to have an MRI scan – apparently the first to be performed on anyone with a transorbital lobotomy. ‘I feel so privileged to be here,’ gushed Mosley, momentarily conflating the act of looking at a map with the taking of the trip. There were two ominous lacunae in the parts of his brain associated with impulse control. Howard looked bemused at being told by Mosely what a fantastic individual he was. It’s like being told you’ve been improved by having a hole in the head.

Noevertheless, the minor irritation of Mosely’s sycophancy aside, this is riveting TV. It’s a risky business being a documentary presenter these days. You’re expected, Blue Peter style, to proffer yourself up as an experimental subject. Mosely had his brain electricity interfered with to demonstrate brain geography. It will be interesting to see if he survives the six-week series undamaged by modern medicine.

Meanwhile, Lord Winston takes to the screen again tonight in Superdoctors on BBC1 at 9 pm. This three-parter looks at frontier medicine – using new technology to supposedly enhance medical interventions. From his interview on R4 this morning, it doesn’t sound as if he’s been convinced.

Art and the brain

2008-07-30T10:34:00.004+01:00

On R4's Woman's Hour today there was an inteview with Susan Aldworth, an artist who has worked with neuroscientist Dr Fiona Lebeau. The results is a series of images inspired by Aldworth's own scans after she inhaled too much white spirit in her studio and suffered a minor bleed on the brain. The work is varied, and draws on science in interesting ways, but Aldworth's main preoccupation is trying to explore the material basis of personality. In an innovative take on sci-art as process as well as product, she has experimented with etching techniques and developed a method in which the chemical processes are analogous to those in the brain that might be responsible for personality.

The exhbition, Scribing the Soul, is at the Transition Gallery, Unit 25a, Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Road, London E8 and is on until 17 August 2008.

Portraits of macular degeneration

2008-06-14T10:22:00.004+01:00

Artist Adam Hahn is exhibiting work resulting from his year-long research of how the vision is affected of people suffering from the common eye disease, macular degeneration. He worked with opthalmologist Professor Pete Coffey and used data from the Moorfields Eye Hospital. But mostly he talked to his sitters. The project is important in that Hahn found that medical textbooks often misrepresent the vision loss that patients experience, describing it as a black hole rather then the graduated blurring effect that Hahn has managed to capture. His method was to use photographs initially, digitally manipulating them and showing them to the sitters (who often still have good peripheral vision) to verify that it accurately represents the way they see. He then paints the portraits on canvas. Hahn and Coffey were interviewed on Radio 4's Front Row on Thursday 12 June, and the programme is available on Listen Again for a week.

The paintings are on show until 17 July 2008 at the Macalls Gallery, Paddock Wood, Kent.

Patterns crystallise in new exhibition at Wellcome Trust

2008-06-05T18:06:00.003+01:00

The Wellcome Collection has a super little exhibition on how crystallography has influenced art and design. Built around the work of the 'Festival Pattern Group', the exhibition features design products for the 1951 Festival of Britain that were inspired by the kaleidoscope-like diffraction patterns of X-ray crystallography.

My visit fortuitously coincided with a very interesting talk by Bonnie Ann Wallace, professor of Molecular Biophysics at Birkbeck, who explained why crystallography lends itself so well to artistic interpretation. Professor Wallace had brought along some props from her lab which helped to demonstrate trends in crystallography -- how it has moved from drawing and 3D modelling to computer imaging.

The objects on display range from wallpaper inspired by the crystalline structure of insulin to carpet designs and crockery. Intriguing is a beautiful evening gown worn by the wife of crystallography pioneer, Sir Lawrence Bragg. It is embroidered with the hexagonal patterns of Beryl minerals.

'From Atoms to Patterns' runs at the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road, London, until 10 August 2008. If you can't make it in person, the exhibition website is packed with information.

Stages of Dying

2008-05-21T11:43:00.007+01:00

I recently came across the following poem by Dr Tim Metcalf (Poet and Part-Time GP from Australia) and thought I should share it with you guys. It is taken from 'Verbal Medicine: 21 Contemporary Clinician-Poets of Australia and New Zealand'; Ginninderra Press Canberra; Metcalf T (ed.) (2006) which earned him an 'ACT Writing and Publishing Award (Poetry)' in 2007:

STAGES OF DYING (after Elisabeth Kubler-Ross)
Tim Metcalf

Denial

In anatomy class
we cut textbook lines
into the dull clay of our body.
We shook dismembered hands,
and bragged of cricket with arms and balls
for a joke.
We washed the formalin from our hands
for the next two days.

Shock

A pregnant girl collapsed.
The scalpel cut quick and deep.
Her grey belly peeled apart.
The monitors ticked:
a mechanical requiem.
White gloves pulled out the baby
cold and dead like the streets
I wandered half that night.

Guilt

As an intern
I was anxious, and obedient.
To cure at all costs
was the boss’ creed.
I had no time for the old woman
we made betray her faith.
Soon after the transfusion
she died of cancer.

Anger

Some drunken bastard
hit this woman with his car.
Her young breasts quivered
each time we thumped her chest.
Over half an hour
her face, burned alive,
set cold, branding for life
the mind of her child.

Sorrow

Was it happy, his final memory?
This poor bloke, purple-faced
and next in line for death?
I was naive, yesterday,
regarding his broken heart.
Today it wouldn’t go anymore.
Tonight I was drunk.
There were tears, briefly.

Acceptance

I went to see an elder on his beach up north.
He didn’t say much.
There was this sky-blue dreaming;
the ocean its lucent mirror,
flawless like an egg.
I heard he died around sunset.
That night a warm breeze blew
the soothing tune of the sea

Posted with the kind permission of Dr Tim Metcalf. You can read more of Dr Metcalf's work at http://www.softblow.com/timmetcalf.html

Social networking meets health care

2008-05-17T10:09:00.002+01:00

New Scientist has picked up on the popularity of a networking site called patientslikeme. This is more than an information-sharing site, it encourages patients to record their symptoms and responses to treatment regimes on a regular basis. There is a star-based incentive programme for patients to keep their information up to date. The site makes money, not from advertising revenue, but from aggregating, anonymising and selling on the data to 'life science companies for treatments' (is that a euphemism for pharmaceutical companies?).

For the site to work, it means that patients have to forgo their privacy. The site encourages 'an openness philosophy'. Of course, you can still use a 'handle' instead of your real name, but many members upload photographs and make an extraordinary amount of information available. A bot like Facebook's live streaming, members with mood disorders can record 'instant mood', as well as a detailed breakdown of symptoms which are all plotted graphically. Check out Zephyr_Marie's profile as an example of how much information is available.

With rumours that DIPEx (a UK based website of interviews with patients) is going to become subscription-only, patientslikeme is potentially groundbreaking. It challenges a longstanding assumption that people are less likely to be 'honest' on the web. The site currently has 11850 members and covers ALS/Motor Neuron Disease, Anxiety, Bipolar, Depression, HIV/AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), Parkinson's disease, and PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Although the numerical data is publicly available, but you have to be a member to access the patients' stories (on the forums). By foregrounding the data aspects, it tells only one, very medicalised, version of the patient experience. It's an interesting experiment though, and worth watching to see if it does herald a seachange in the attitude to patient confidentiality and medical data.

Do the arts make you a better doctor?

2008-05-09T14:26:00.001+01:00

There is a great discussion going on the BMJ blog on the value of the arts to medicine.

Art and Medicine event

2008-05-07T15:38:00.002+01:00

The Royal Society of Medicine is hosting a talk on Art and Medicine directed at Students and Trainees this coming Friday 9th of May. It looks like a really interesting programme.

Entry is 5 pounds for non-members and includes 3 short talks, tea and coffee, a wine reception and art exhibition.

Invitation to 'Artbeats'

2008-04-28T18:35:00.003+01:00

Everyone is invited to the opening of 'Artbeats', this year's Medical Humanities art exhibition. As part of the Medical Humanities specialist option at Imperial College London, students are encouraged to create an artwork. It can be in any medium, and on any topic related to medicine. This year, the exhibition will include fine art, photography, sculpture, film and even a few 'installations'.

The opening reception takes place on 6 May 2008 at 7.30 pm. Refreshments will be provided.

The exhibition is open to the public, free of charge, and runs until 22 May, in the Blyth Gallery, Level 5, Sherfield Building, Imperial College London (South Kensington campus).

The exhibition is curated by Mindy Lee. The publicity artwork this year is provided by Neil Shah, whose work is entitled 'Good Grief'.

For more information, e-mail Giskin Day.

Cover art for Academic Medicine

2008-04-28T18:00:00.002+01:00

The presigious journal Academic Medicine is looking for works of art to put on their covers. What a great opportunity for those working in the field. This is the deal:

Cover Art
These original works of art should be inspired by, but not necessarily representative of, a health care experience from any perspective-caregiver, student, or patient (for example, learning how to be a physician or scientist, caring for patients, exploring research questions, making a new discovery, being a research participant, teaching, or being cared for in a teaching hospital). The journal welcomes photography, sculpture, painting, textile work, and other visual media. Images may be cropped or resized to fit into the allotted cover space. Acceptance is contingent on the artist's signing an AAMC Artist Consent Form.

Artists will have the option of submitting a related Teaching and Learning Moment (TLM) as a narrative companion to the artwork, to explain the connection between the work and the "academic medicine experience". The related narrative should adhere to TLM submission guidelines Based on the individual strength of the artwork and the supporting TLM, we may occasionally choose to publish one without the other.

High-resolution TIFF files with a minimum of 300 dpi resolution are required at the time of submission. Images are at least 4 ¼" x 4 ¼" (with the ideal size being 4 ¼" x 4 ½" ) and are vertical or square, not horizontal. Images must be grayscale or CMYK. Submissions do not require an abstract.

More information on the journal's website: www.academicmedicine.org.

Spiritual journey through old age to death

2008-04-22T16:48:00.000+01:00

Life Before Death was a very moving exhibition at the Wellcome Collection. It was a collection of black and white images capturing people just before and just after death. Journalist Beate Lakotta and photographer Walter Schels took images of 24 terminally ill patients and interviewed them whilst taking the first image trying to extract their thoughts about their inevitable death. The pictures were crisp photographs on a large scale with a black backdrop. Every blemish, scar and wrinkle was shown to us up close. This gave the viewer an unusual level of intimacy, usually only reserved for those close to the dying.

The first images seemed to encapsulate the subject’s views on death and reflected the worries and fears that they were facing. In contrast, the photographs taken after death seemed to exhibit the ways in which they had learnt to come to terms with their tragedy. For example, one lady when interviewed embodied an overwhelming resentment towards God and started to question his existence. Her after death portrait was the only one of the 24 to be taken inside a coffin, with a white, velvet background giving an almost holy feel to the image. It gave the impression she had accepted her fate and given herself over to a spiritual world.

Some of the more harrowing photographs were of terminally ill children. We found these slightly disturbing and considered the implications of showing these images of people who may have not yet understood the magnitude of their disease.

Untold: An Exploration of Identity in Old Age was a reflection of the Arts & Minds Project at the SW1 Gallery undertaken to illustrate the value of art as a supportive therapy for the elderly. On entering you were confronted by three etchings conveying the mental experience of a patient with dementia. Artistically we thought they were fantastic, but it was hard to relate them to the disease. Moving on, Deborah Padfield’s collection of photgraphs of the elderly depicted them sewn to other people or objects. We thought this demonstrated that they were tied to what they loved and found it warming that they had something to hold onto.

The next part of the exhibition embodied the contribution of the elderly subjects. You were able to sit down in an installation of a typical room in a care home and listen to music made by Fraser Trainer and Peter Whyman from the instruction of the subjects. These inspirational pieces showed an incredible freedom for the residents to express themselves in ways they would not normally be able to. A video accompanied this showing how the residents used hand signals to instruct the musicians what to play, therefore creating “improvised” music.

Finally, we ended on a collection of iconic images of London traced and painted from photographs all of which was done by residents. Some of the paintings had a child-like ethos, which could reflect the way that society views the elderly in the same way they view children; in constant need of care and attention; patronising and demeaning.

By coincidence, on the day we visited the exhibition the residents of one of the centers involved in the project had come in to view the fruits of their labour. A sense of pride and completion graced their faces representing a renewed sense of worth that this project had given to them.

Both of these exhibitions were very touching and allowed us to reflect more about the plights of the elderly and terminally ill.

Soumen & Rupert

Medicine and Narration in the Eighteenth Century

2008-04-15T16:09:00.003+01:00

There is an interesting programme of talks in Oxford on Friday 18 April 2008 at Maison Française d’Oxford, 2-10 Norham Road, Oxford, OX2 6SE, starting at 9.45 am. Enquiries to maison@herald.ox.ac.uk.

Doctor-author reading

2008-03-28T18:54:00.002Z

There will be a joint reading by renowned doctor-authors on Wednesday 21 May 2008, 7.30 pm, at Swedenborg Hall, The Swedenborg Society, 20-21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH. For further information or to reserve places, please e-mail gmb@hammersmithpress.co.uk. The £5 entrance fee includes a complementary glass of wine.

The English Surgeon

2008-03-08T20:31:00.000Z

The English Surgeon
DFG Screening at the ICA
Thursday, 20th March, 4pm

DFG is proud to present The English Surgeon, Geoffrey Smith's remarkable and moving documentary, shown to great acclaim at the Times bfi London Film Festival and Sheffield Doc/Fest.When brain surgeon Henry Marsh first visited a Ukraine hospital in 1992, he found the medical conditions absolutely appalling. Since then he has worked with his Ukrainian protege Igor Petrovich to help create a viable clinic using discarded NHS equipment, and to bring hope to people where there was none. In Geoffrey Smith's moving, beautifully shot documentary, we follow Henry on his latest trip, to yet another corridor filled with patients for whom he is their last chance. Marion is among them, determined to do something about the enormous brain tumour threatening his life, even if it means undergoing an operation he must stay awake throughout. As Henry tackles increasingly risky procedures, he is haunted by the memory of an operation which went catastrophically wrong. Featuring exclusive access to the KGB hospital in Kiev and original music composed and performed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.Dir. Geoffrey Smith, UK 2007, 94 minsSurgeon Henry Marsh will join the director Geoffrey Smith for a very special Q&A after the screening.

For more details see: www.dfgdocs.com/Events/1302.aspx
Read the interview with Director Geoffrey Smith by Kerry McLeod here

Wellcome trust

2008-03-04T20:49:00.001Z

The Wellcome trust was set up on the death of Sir Henry Wellcome, an eccentric, self made pharmaceutical entrepreneur. Throughout his life his passion for medicine and archeology manifested in a diverse collection of objects from the mundane to obscure. The latter being epitomized by the angry metallic teeth of the “anti-masturbation” devices sitting proudly in unison with the array of steel clad chastity belts.

However, I found a deeper love downstairs from the collection in the “sleeping and dreaming” exhibition. What is sleep? What are dreams? Why do we need sleep? Why do we dream? Do we need to dream? Considering one third of our lives are spent in this state science has really struggled to answer the above questions and hence many modern day ideas are born from the realms of the arts. This dichotomy is reflected in the exhibition as the romance of the arts conjures up interest while science serves to give context.

The exhibition was light by way of facts and those that were represented my Bsc primed eyes met with distain in the absence of evidence. So I left with a feeling of unsatisfied fascination and a frustrated inquisitiveness.

LSE SU Arts Week 2008!

2008-03-01T14:20:00.003Z

Invitation to Arts Week 2008 Launch!
The LSE Arts Forum is happy to invite you to a lunch reception to spark off Arts Week 2008.
In celebration of the Arts at LSE, join us and enjoy free food and drink, a creative crowd and LSE artistic talent!
Time: Monday 3 March, 12.00
Location: Parish Hall
Please find the Arts Week What's on Guide attached, listing all arts-related activities/talks/performances across campus during the week.
For more information, please contact: su.artsforum@lse.ac.uk
Hope to see you there!
LSE Arts Forum
(Arts Week is supported by the LSE Arts Advisory Group and the LSE Students'Union)

The most important things are the exhibition really - its on every day between 10 and 4. The launch is going to be the best part as it will showcase a scene from the play that my sister is producing, Dr Faustus, but will possibly be very overcrowded due to the incidence of free food. There are also other events which might interest, such as plush monster making on Tuesday afternoon, a knitting workshop and numerous book clubs, life drawing events, workshops, etc. Hope to see you there!

The nearest tube to the LSE is Holborn Station on the central line. If you need any more info on how to get there you can email rashidt@lse.ac.uk

Derek Jarman

2008-02-25T16:48:00.005Z

An exhibition of the work of Derek Jarman, including his famous film Blue, is taking place at the Serpentine Gallery. Blue was the last colour Jarman could could register before he lost his sight, and ultimately his life, to the disease. Much of the work addresses issues surrounding his sexuality and how he was impacted by AIDS. Curated by Isaac Julien, it runs until 13th April. And since the Serpentine is just up the road from Imperial you should have plenty of opportunity to visit before the show ends its run. You can find out more here.

Appignanesi in conversation

2008-02-25T15:58:00.002Z

Next Thursday, 6th March, Lisa Appignanesi will be talking to psychoanalyst Margot Waddell about her new book Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present. The talk will take place at 8.30pm at The Institute of Psychoanalysis. Click here for more information and to book.

The medical burden

2008-02-20T18:51:00.005Z

Just a short poem inspired by my time at the gym, and how it reminds me of the burden that medicine has on the lives which are devoted to it.

The medical burden

I have been here before.
Seen these walls,walked this floor.
But rather than be greeted by friendly faces
I see the anguished looks of grown men,
Writhing in pain as if condemned.
My reflection calls me over showing what I seek.
Holding my future in my hands I don't leave it to the fates,
Standing in front of the bending bar stacked with familiar plates.
Each one ingrained with expectation,
Though I have bared its burden they stare back mockingly,
As today there are more plates, more doubts,
More questions asked by them, by myself,
With fear of failure adding to their immense weight.
Do I concede, defeated by the sheer thought of its gravity,
Breaking me from outside in, inside out,
Physically, emotionally;
Or do pick up the gauntlet and use my will,
My power, every fiber of my strength,
To raise the the burden up with the heavens.
With my sweat on the walls and footprints on the floor,
I have been here before,
And I will endure; I will endure.

What is art?

2008-02-15T20:22:00.002Z

Yesterday's discussion really had me thinking about what people perceive as art. The Tate purchased something I personally wouldn't consider art, however, they're the Tate so I guess they have more authority.

Take a look at this. The museum spent in excess of 20 000 pounds on Merda d'artista, tin cans filled with the artist's excrement.

Here, in an article titled Excremental Value, they go on to say how it's seventy times worth its weight in gold! As irony would have it, it was found out that it WASN'T the artist's excrement, but just plaster.

So really... What is art? ;)

Valentine's Day viral

2008-02-14T21:29:00.000Z