Month: April 2019
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Self-esteem and skin diseases
Bebeyi Abiodun Nigeria We don’t live forever, so let’s make those around us happy. African Global Pharma (AGP) When I was a little girl, I looked for angular objects to help me scratch my legs. The itch and disgust encroached on my everyday life. I always wore my socks pulled up even though it…
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Preparing for a zombie apocalypse
Larry KerrCarlisle, Pennsylvania, United States What can we learn from a Zombie Apocalypse? The first thing to learn? It could happen. Anyone who has been on this earth for a length of time knows that when a person says something cannot possibly happen, it almost certainly will. Even more worrisome is the disclaimer that if…
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Two hearts beating: the history and benefits of “Kangaroo Care”
Nursan CinarHamide ZenginSakarya, Turkey The rate of preterm birth is between 5 and 18% worldwide. Prematurity is the most important cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity, especially in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the neonatal mortality rate is 20% worldwide.1 Having a premature baby is a source of anxiety and stress…
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The sweetest gift
Subramoniam Rangaswami Karnataka, India Viswan and his father with the gift, image courtesy of author It was the mid-1970s. We were busy packing our portmanteaus and bags in preparation for leaving our campus residence in Calicut Medical College in Kerala1 where I had been working as an assistant professor of orthopedics. I thought I…
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A picture of ill-health: The illness of Elizabeth Siddal
Emily BoyleDublin, Ireland It is difficult to think of Ophelia, one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters, without bringing to mind the famous depiction of her by John Everett Millais. In Hamlet, the sensitive and fragile Ophelia is driven mad by grief after her lover Hamlet rejects her and kills her father Polonius. After very poetically…
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Passion, paint, and pain: the journey of Robert Seldon Duncanson
Mildred WilsonDetroit, MI, USA Lead poisoning (saturnism) has been present throughout history.1 Italian physician Bernardino Ramazzini is considered the first to have made the connection between paint and artists’ health. In his book De Morbis Artificum Diatriba published in 1700, he stated, “The many painters I have known, almost all I found unhealthy. . .…
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Life is short and Art is long: reflections on the first Hippocratic aphorism
Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece The ruins of the Asclepeion in the Greek island of Kos, the birthplace of Hippocrates. Photo courtesy of author. Some five centuries before Christ, the ancient father of medicine Hippocrates used to instruct his students that “Life is short and Art is long; opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult.” (Ο…
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Drug war or race war? Effects of illegal drug distribution in the African-American community
Denise PowellSan Francisco, California, United States I also don’t believe in drugs. For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn’t do that kind of business. Somebody comes to them and says, “I have powders. If you up three, four-thousand-dollar investment, we can make fifty thousand distributing.” So they can’t resist. I want to…
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Burnout
Ronald Rembert Chicago, Illinois, United States Sarasota Sunset, courtesy of author. 2005. I was assigned to work at Cook County Hospital for my emergency room (ER) clerkship in my third year of medical school. “Whoa, that place is crazy . . . you will see a lot a people there,” I was told by…
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When there’s no plug to pull
Darcy Sternberg New York, New York, United States On the Waves of Love. Edvard Munch, printed by Otto Felsing. 1896. The Art Institute of Chicago. At night I lie awake on the living room sofa staring at the moon, envying its constancy. Change had eaten up our lives. My husband, Marty, and I met…