Sally Carter: Films, fistula, and an illiterate surgeon

One of the world’s most experienced fistula surgeons is illiterate. I found that out when I went to a screening of a short film called Fistula Hospital: Healing and Hope at the Frontline Club in Paddington. Her name is Mamitu Gashe, and she was a patient at the Addis Ababa Fistula hospital. After her operation […]

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Sally Carter: A film premiere at the Hunterian Museum

I headed to the Hunterian Museum in London to see the UK premiere of a film about donating bodies to medical science. It was raining, no red carpets were to be seen, and rather than thin people in high fashion, the only skeletal creatures on show really were skeletons. I wasn’t expecting a great evening, […]

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Sally Carter on maternal health – with a touch of glamour

Eighteen months ago I had my first child, and ever since I’ve loved listening to other people’s birth stories – long, short, blissful, or terrifying – I’m all ears. I got a ticket as soon as I saw the London Film Festival was showing No Woman, No Cry, a 60 minute documentary about maternal health directed by the model Christy Turlington Burns. Did it […]

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Sally Carter on the Council of Science Editors conference

I went to the Council of Science Editors conference in Atlanta, which was snazzily entitled “The Changing Climate of Scientific Publishing: The Heat is On.” Atlanta was indeed hot. I had to get over the guilt of flying to a conference with climate change at its heart, then arriving at a completely air-conditioned hotel, wasting […]

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Sally Carter and Birte Twisselmann: Imagining synaesthesia

Mixing of the senses Synaesthesia, this “mixing of the senses,” is a difficult thing to describe. I have read David Eagleman’s editorial and an anonymous patient’s and psychiatrist Steve Logdail’s patient’s journey article. I see that having synaesthesia may add colour and depth your writing, if writing is your thing (see below for synaesthesia as […]

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