This year's The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival is featuring a programme on 'Writing Medicine', a series of events that aim to explore the interaction between literature and medicine.
Wellcome Trust 'Writing Medicine' events
Sebastian Faulks and Steve Jones
Sat 6 Oct/14.15-15.15/Town Hall/£7
Sebastian Faulks' bestselling novel 'Human Traces' draws on five years' research in medical libraries, while Steve Jones' 'Coral' used the amazing power of the electronic Web of Science to mine the world for information. They discuss the pleasures and challenges of the research process, and the fascinating and often unpredictable ways it shapes their work.
Medics
Sun 7 Oct/14.15-15.15/Town Hall/£6
From 'Dr Finlay's Casebook' to 'ER', portrayal of the medical world has undergone a seismic shift. Ambulanceman Tom Reynolds, author of the award-winning blog 'Blood, Sweat and Tea', joins former doctor Jed Mercurio, creator of 'Bodies and Cardiac Arrest', and The Times' Thomas Stuttaford to explore whether fact matches up to fiction.
The Only Boy in the World
Mon 8 Oct/14.00-15.00/Town Hall/£6
Michael Blastland has written powerfully about his son's autism. He joins Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre, and Marti Leimbach, author of 'Daniel Isn't Talking', to talk about their own experiences, how autism is reflected on the page and how this relates to the latest medical thinking.
In Sickness and in Health
Wed 10 Oct/16.00-1700/Town Hall/£6
How do authors write about illness and recovery? Poet and non-fiction writer Gwyneth Lewis and author Jeremy Thomas have both written powerfully about depression and illness. They join Brian Hurwitz to discuss reading, writing and recovery.
Ian McEwan and Steven Pinker
Sat 13 Oct/12.00-13.00/Everyman Theatre/£7
How does language shape who we are? Booker-winning novelist Ian McEwan and bestselling psychologist Steven Pinker share a fascination for the way language can offer a window into the depths of human nature. They make an unmissable rare joint appearance.
Seizures
Sun 14 Oct/ 15.00-16.00/Town Hall/£6
Neuropsychologist Paul Broks' 'Into the Silent Land' is a haunting meditation on the relationship between mind and body, while The Times' Erica Wagner's debut novel 'Seizure' uses epilepsy to explore similar terrain. They discuss the portrayal of epilepsy in literature and drama and its power as a fictional device.
The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival runs from 5 to 14 of October. To book tickets please call the credit card hotline on 01242 227979. For full programme details see The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival website.
Monday, September 24, 2007
New source of Medical Humanities funding
The Wellcome Trust has just announced Strategic Awards in the Medical Humanities which will promote multidisciplinary research collaborations. This is good news for the field. More details here.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Back To Work 1: shades of nights past
I have now been well and truly blooded in the deep-immersion technique of returning to surgery, feet first, into the deep end. In fact, I exaggerate. It felt, for the months leading up to this entry, that it would be extremely deep and extremely bloody, but this is not a war zone. The denizens of my particular corner of the city seem to be maintaining a truce in the gun and stabbing battles that can so excite those of us employed to clean up afterwards. Either that, or they have got better at finishing off their victims, and bypassed us altogether for the more direct line to the morgue. My nights have involved so far the usual grist to the surgical mill of appendices inflamed and not inflamed along with abscesses - hundreds of years of lancing the spectacular things. One has to treasure the operations that necessarily bring you thanks. Most of our interventions hurt and need explaining. However there are a few that bring instant relief: relieving your buttock abscess of an acre of pus; catheterising a man in acute retention of urine, though messy and now, one would hope, rather below me after years of it. All lead to effusive gratitude. Of course, now that they have deprived our wards of all doctors except me, I will again be catheterizing when it is beyond the capabilities of the excellent, yet often hassled nurses (now "clinical site managers").
So this is what has changed: as a houseman, now 13 years ago (wince), I was the sole mistress of the wards. In charge at night of all wards and all admissions with only some tetchy and off-putting seniors to call and woe betide if my story wasn't good, and my investigations done. As an SHO, the next level up in the recently-replaced system, the housemen began to be put to bed and once again, I was the doctor in charge at night. Going round, sorting out the serious and the bog-standard annoying. Admitting and sitting on those not serious enough to wake my tetchy and demanding senior about.
I now return to active service, only to find that the SHOs, too, are in bed now. At the elevated role of Registrar, I would, once have been the tetchy one in bed but am now wandering around the wards keen to find someone to incise and drain or laparotomise to give me an excuse to avoid the drudgery they are so keen to thrust upon me.
It makes me worry slightly about the next leap up, should I make it thus far: the ultimate goal of consultant, the "attending" of the US hierarchy. When we started, they were noble figures, rarely glimpsed and obsequiously bowed-before. The yearly party hosted by them at their pads were more a chance to show off the prizes of sticking the middle years - swimming pool, racing cars, luxurious space and wine. It was supposed to be your inspiration. The standards have been slipping recently, one must admit. More likely a semi in Muswell Hill than Hampstead splendour. But now, having worked this system and expected their last twenty years to be of semi-retired elective advice as the generation before them, they are in supervising a rusty surgical girl sharpening up her knives for a measly little appendix.
What's come back? Oh the tying of knots, the laying on of hands. What's decayed? Memory, my once ace card, now a little frayed at the edges; non-surgical know-how. My, how it's moved on in my absence!
Part 2: But what about the kids?
So this is what has changed: as a houseman, now 13 years ago (wince), I was the sole mistress of the wards. In charge at night of all wards and all admissions with only some tetchy and off-putting seniors to call and woe betide if my story wasn't good, and my investigations done. As an SHO, the next level up in the recently-replaced system, the housemen began to be put to bed and once again, I was the doctor in charge at night. Going round, sorting out the serious and the bog-standard annoying. Admitting and sitting on those not serious enough to wake my tetchy and demanding senior about.
I now return to active service, only to find that the SHOs, too, are in bed now. At the elevated role of Registrar, I would, once have been the tetchy one in bed but am now wandering around the wards keen to find someone to incise and drain or laparotomise to give me an excuse to avoid the drudgery they are so keen to thrust upon me.
It makes me worry slightly about the next leap up, should I make it thus far: the ultimate goal of consultant, the "attending" of the US hierarchy. When we started, they were noble figures, rarely glimpsed and obsequiously bowed-before. The yearly party hosted by them at their pads were more a chance to show off the prizes of sticking the middle years - swimming pool, racing cars, luxurious space and wine. It was supposed to be your inspiration. The standards have been slipping recently, one must admit. More likely a semi in Muswell Hill than Hampstead splendour. But now, having worked this system and expected their last twenty years to be of semi-retired elective advice as the generation before them, they are in supervising a rusty surgical girl sharpening up her knives for a measly little appendix.
What's come back? Oh the tying of knots, the laying on of hands. What's decayed? Memory, my once ace card, now a little frayed at the edges; non-surgical know-how. My, how it's moved on in my absence!
Part 2: But what about the kids?
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
The Woman Surgeon and the Pea
It's just a question, really. Does any one of you artistic souls out there have an idea for the logo of the new women in surgery committee of the royal college of surgeons of england? I can't face capitalising them all as is their due, but the WinS committee goes like that and is going to be a new dynamic force for equality in surgery. Possibly. No, definitely! Only logos are a bit of a debatable issue, post-Olympics. In fact, for women in surgery or women generally, how do you get a defining image of a woman that is not also insulting or reductionist? Well, answers on a post card in a week... They have tried an initial one: a woman's eyes looking over what appears to be the top of a mask on top of the "W" like a lid (I'd love to copy it but would be breaking a few rules) . When shown to some great and good at the college, it was said to look like a woman with fangs, or screaming. Perhaps this describes better the male surgeon's fear of women in the job?
This has been a welcome distraction from the organising of kids and the freezer and the dry cleaning of suits in mothballs (I wish they had been in mothballs - a chosen few eaten happily by generations of the little buggers since I last donned a suit and tried to look serious) which have been my lot of the last few weeks. Going back to work coincides neatly with school and the "Back to School" cheery adverts in shop windows have the same day-dulling effect on me as they did in school days. As they do indeed on my son. Is it no coincidence that they have created an academic year that starts as the nights draw in, the last hopes for summer fade, and we bed down for a long, wet winter. Do they enjoy school more in Australia?
The distraction of suits and summer's last days has in turn helped me avoid the concept of actually revising some facts after my long sojourn in mummy-land. Well, have arrived at the concept but not really acquired any of the facts. So I have persuaded myself that only option is to treat this with more retail therapy - buy some books with the fast-dwindling capital and somehow sleeping with them under my pillow will give me confidence to face out my first day at work. Perhaps.
A logo for the women surgeons? A princess and the pea-like image but with the woman sleeping soundly on a great pile of books and surgical instruments under the mattresses.
This has been a welcome distraction from the organising of kids and the freezer and the dry cleaning of suits in mothballs (I wish they had been in mothballs - a chosen few eaten happily by generations of the little buggers since I last donned a suit and tried to look serious) which have been my lot of the last few weeks. Going back to work coincides neatly with school and the "Back to School" cheery adverts in shop windows have the same day-dulling effect on me as they did in school days. As they do indeed on my son. Is it no coincidence that they have created an academic year that starts as the nights draw in, the last hopes for summer fade, and we bed down for a long, wet winter. Do they enjoy school more in Australia?
The distraction of suits and summer's last days has in turn helped me avoid the concept of actually revising some facts after my long sojourn in mummy-land. Well, have arrived at the concept but not really acquired any of the facts. So I have persuaded myself that only option is to treat this with more retail therapy - buy some books with the fast-dwindling capital and somehow sleeping with them under my pillow will give me confidence to face out my first day at work. Perhaps.
A logo for the women surgeons? A princess and the pea-like image but with the woman sleeping soundly on a great pile of books and surgical instruments under the mattresses.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Oncology multidisciplinary meeting
“Mr Jones…”, someone drones.
The consultants are the only ones consulted,
Although the ENT surgeons keep cutting in.
“This one’s not healing. Transfer to Ealing.”
The anatomist may do the body of the work
But it is the pathologist who focuses on the details.
“Mrs Ryder: intermittent stridor.”
The radiologists show everyone the bigger picture
Although the nurses, now sitting silent, might be more qualified to do so.
“White cells seem low. Stop the chemo.”
Similarly, the speech and language therapists say nothing
And the physios don’t move a muscle.
“Tumour’s enlarging.” “Where’s the margin?”
Some doctors are called away, leaving when they have nothing more to offer,
But the palliative carers stay until the end.
“Mr Brady." "So, consider radio?”
And for three hours, at the back of the room,
The students study the insides of their eyelids.
The consultants are the only ones consulted,
Although the ENT surgeons keep cutting in.
“This one’s not healing. Transfer to Ealing.”
The anatomist may do the body of the work
But it is the pathologist who focuses on the details.
“Mrs Ryder: intermittent stridor.”
The radiologists show everyone the bigger picture
Although the nurses, now sitting silent, might be more qualified to do so.
“White cells seem low. Stop the chemo.”
Similarly, the speech and language therapists say nothing
And the physios don’t move a muscle.
“Tumour’s enlarging.” “Where’s the margin?”
Some doctors are called away, leaving when they have nothing more to offer,
But the palliative carers stay until the end.
“Mr Brady." "So, consider radio?”
And for three hours, at the back of the room,
The students study the insides of their eyelids.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
There's a blog blocking me up like a constipated stool..watch out, it's been a long time. Complete bowel obstruction about to ensue. The problem is, the time is so rapidly approaching for my return to the world of full-time work, that there has been no time to record the changes bearing down on me. From planning the minutiae of my children's after-school care to worrying about only having joke shoes and glasses bent back by a toddler and held together with sellotape. Once fetching in a Pulp or Morrissey sort of way, this look is hardly inspiring in a surgeon. One of my bosses (for someone who works only one measly day, I seem to have acquired a fair number of bosses) commented that my clothes didn't match. There are downsides to female bosses. I didn't want to admit that I'd got dressed in the dark. Anyhow, defence seemed pointless. Another said, "you'll have to lose the hippy look". Oh, for a suit and a tie and be done with it. Haven't we enough to worry about without the whole thing of what goes with what. I shall spend as much of the day in blue pyjamas as possible. It saves on dry cleaning bills, for a start.
I've noticed that colonoscoping has got easier. I mean, at about the pace of watching a child grow. Almost visible, yet not. Only when someone hasn't seen them for a few weeks, then they say, ooh he's taller and I think yes, I thought he was taller. Been detecting it in extra gap at the ankle - note: needs new trousers - and yet can't see it. My improvements are a combination of confidence and practice. Interesting to see that the boss (one of em) doesn't intervene now when I'm stuck. I'm kind of left to it. I don't whizz round them all in 3 minutes, but I do whizz round some in 3 minutes. There are always the ego-deflating (mine) and colon-inflating (theirs) depressingly difficult ones. We had a list of them last week. Possibly the most depressing week I'd had in what is now 2 and a half years of this job. Each and every patient was either poorly prepared (bowels covered in poo - like we all are. What a lowering thought. I shall look at the next mean member of officialdom I meet with my X-ray eyes and see through to his poo-covered gut), or hopelessly difficult or both. And worst of all, we didn't achieve anything. No one was saved. A hiatus at the beginning, at 9, when no one arrived for an hour left us hopelessly late at the end, finally drooping out of there resentfully at 7. At least it rained cheerlessly all day, matching our mood.
This week, though, buoyed by the sun we succeeded. We still finished late, but it somehow felt different. I searched carefully for a polyp to have the satisfaction of finding one, hiding in the very last place I looked. You don't want to find cancers. They are big and scary and life-changing, life-threatening bits of news to see round a bend - an intake of breath, somehow the patient is alerted and looks: what's that? of course they ask. Yet how can you have a serious discussion about what it might be, with someone dosed up on benzodiazepines, in the least equable position at patient can be, at the mercy of your scope? Of course it is always better that it was found now rather than later. But the recriminations begin immediately - why did the GP sit on it, the patient not complain more, the husband not notice something? Finding a polyp is usually without these implications. Just all good. Meant the decision to scope was correct. Potential future cancer can be avoided. And you get all the fun of zapping it. Finding ten polyps, when there are 4 people waiting is not good - too much pressure to be fast. So there it is, the is the tiny rectangle of pleasure that keeps you coming back: despite the wrist ache, the excruciatingly dull paperwork, the possibility always of doing it wrong in many many ways, the satisfaction of buzzing off a little polyp in someone's gut. My old boss said you were of surgical intent if you used to squeeze other people's spots as a teenager. I should have stuck to that.
I've noticed that colonoscoping has got easier. I mean, at about the pace of watching a child grow. Almost visible, yet not. Only when someone hasn't seen them for a few weeks, then they say, ooh he's taller and I think yes, I thought he was taller. Been detecting it in extra gap at the ankle - note: needs new trousers - and yet can't see it. My improvements are a combination of confidence and practice. Interesting to see that the boss (one of em) doesn't intervene now when I'm stuck. I'm kind of left to it. I don't whizz round them all in 3 minutes, but I do whizz round some in 3 minutes. There are always the ego-deflating (mine) and colon-inflating (theirs) depressingly difficult ones. We had a list of them last week. Possibly the most depressing week I'd had in what is now 2 and a half years of this job. Each and every patient was either poorly prepared (bowels covered in poo - like we all are. What a lowering thought. I shall look at the next mean member of officialdom I meet with my X-ray eyes and see through to his poo-covered gut), or hopelessly difficult or both. And worst of all, we didn't achieve anything. No one was saved. A hiatus at the beginning, at 9, when no one arrived for an hour left us hopelessly late at the end, finally drooping out of there resentfully at 7. At least it rained cheerlessly all day, matching our mood.
This week, though, buoyed by the sun we succeeded. We still finished late, but it somehow felt different. I searched carefully for a polyp to have the satisfaction of finding one, hiding in the very last place I looked. You don't want to find cancers. They are big and scary and life-changing, life-threatening bits of news to see round a bend - an intake of breath, somehow the patient is alerted and looks: what's that? of course they ask. Yet how can you have a serious discussion about what it might be, with someone dosed up on benzodiazepines, in the least equable position at patient can be, at the mercy of your scope? Of course it is always better that it was found now rather than later. But the recriminations begin immediately - why did the GP sit on it, the patient not complain more, the husband not notice something? Finding a polyp is usually without these implications. Just all good. Meant the decision to scope was correct. Potential future cancer can be avoided. And you get all the fun of zapping it. Finding ten polyps, when there are 4 people waiting is not good - too much pressure to be fast. So there it is, the is the tiny rectangle of pleasure that keeps you coming back: despite the wrist ache, the excruciatingly dull paperwork, the possibility always of doing it wrong in many many ways, the satisfaction of buzzing off a little polyp in someone's gut. My old boss said you were of surgical intent if you used to squeeze other people's spots as a teenager. I should have stuck to that.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Filmmaking opportunity
MA Film/Media Postgraduate Scholarship National Institute for Excellence in the Creative Industries, Bangor University & MIND
Commencing October 2007
We aim to recruit a student who will work on a weekly basis with mental health service users in Anglesey, undertaking the following innovative film project:
• Overseeing a practical film-making project from pre- to post- production.
• Familiarizing service users with use of industry standard cameras, lighting and editing equipment.
• Working along with other professionals from NIECI facilitating scriptwriting and storyboarding workshops for the purpose of the film.
• Producing a significant piece of high-quality and original critical and/or creative research of publishable standard.
The student will be registered for an MA with the National Institute in 2007-2008 and their postgraduate fees will be paid.
Applications close: August 24th. Applicants can obtain further details from n.abrams@bangor.ac.uk or graeme.harper@bangor.ac.uk. Applications should take the form of a CV, including degree results and any relevant experience, along with a letter of interest.
Commencing October 2007
We aim to recruit a student who will work on a weekly basis with mental health service users in Anglesey, undertaking the following innovative film project:
• Overseeing a practical film-making project from pre- to post- production.
• Familiarizing service users with use of industry standard cameras, lighting and editing equipment.
• Working along with other professionals from NIECI facilitating scriptwriting and storyboarding workshops for the purpose of the film.
• Producing a significant piece of high-quality and original critical and/or creative research of publishable standard.
The student will be registered for an MA with the National Institute in 2007-2008 and their postgraduate fees will be paid.
Applications close: August 24th. Applicants can obtain further details from n.abrams@bangor.ac.uk or graeme.harper@bangor.ac.uk. Applications should take the form of a CV, including degree results and any relevant experience, along with a letter of interest.
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