Dr Richard Ratzan gives us a commentary on his poem “Congenital Glaucoma, published in BMJ Medical Humanities, and explains why he decided to write about this case using the sonnet form. This little girl – she was probably about 13 or 14; I don’t remember since it was about 10 years ago – was from […]
Latest articles
Book Review: Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice
Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice: New Conversations Across the Disciplines by M Buchbinder, M Rivkin-Fish and RL Walker (eds). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2016, 320 pages, £37.50. Reviewed by Professor John Harrington, Cardiff University Inequality has returned to the political agenda in Europe and North America in the aftermath of the […]
CFP: Pain and its Paradoxes
BMJ Medical Humanities will host a special issue on PAIN in June 2018! We want you to be part of it! Title: Pain and its Paradoxes Abstract Deadline: August 1, 2017 Final Submission Deadline: October 1, 2017 (publication date June 2018) Pain is almost certainly the most common illness experience on the planet. Yet, it […]
Storytelling, Suffering, and Silence: The Landscape of Trauma in Afghanistan and Nepal
Dr Ayesha Ahmad, Global Health Humanities Editor, has been travelling in Afghanistan and Nepal and meeting women who’s lived experience is a conflict of chronic gender-based violence. Her initiatives are to integrate storytelling into mental health trauma interventions globally in contexts of war, oppression of women’s speech, violence towards women and girls, and writing against […]
Film Activism: Science, Art and Social Reform
Our Screening Room editor, Khalid Ali (Khalid.ali@bsuh.nhs.uk), interviews film director and producer James Redford. Activism is defined as ‘efforts to promote or direct social, political, economic and/or environmental reform to make improvements in society’. James Redford, documentary filmmaker, producer, and humanitarian uses documentary filmmaking to truly earn the title of a ‘film activist’. I met […]
Book Review: No Apparent Distress
No Apparent Distress: A Doctor’s Coming-of-Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine by Rachel Pearson, New York: W.W. Norton, 2017, 272 pages, £21.99. Reviewed by John Coulehan, Stony Brook University, NY Was there a time before memoirs of medical training became a popular genre of nonfiction? It’s difficult now to imagine a time before aspiring young […]
Book Review: Balint Matters
Balint Matters: Psychosomatics and the Art of Assessment by Jonathan Sklar, London: Karnac, 2017, 254 pages, £27.99. Reviewed by Dr Neil Vickers. Michael Balint is mentioned in medical humanities circles as a revered ancestor, much as one might talk about William Empson as a significant figure in the history of English literary criticism. Everyone knows […]
Book Review: Eros and Illness
Eros and Illness by David B. Morris, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017, 368 pages, £31.95. Review by George Derk, PhD (gtd2gu@virginia.edu) With the provocative pairing in the title of his new book, David Morris sets himself the task of dramatically altering the perceived relation between these two terms. As he contends, there exists less of […]
After the Storm: Liberation and Hope in Later Life
After the Storm (Kore-eda Hirokazu, Japan 2016), in UK Cinemas from 2nd June 2017 Reviewed by Khalid Ali, Screening Room editor Japan is well known for its relatively traditional social structures, a predetermined life course that heavily influences career choices. Kore-eda Hirokazu’s latest film After the Storm explores those paradigms through the story of Ryota […]
Does Narrative Medicine Have a Place at the Frontline of Medicine?
This guest blog post is by Liam Dwyer, a postgraduate medical student at Trinity College, Dublin, where medical training encompasses medicine and health as well as humanities, provoking students to conceptualise medicine differently; not simply as a clinical science, but with a more holistic perspective. Here he explores the role of narrative medicine, both in medical training and its practicality in a clinical […]