Category: Education
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Teaching social determinants of health through art
Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States When teaching medical students, I often incorporate works of art to introduce students to social determinants of health and to gain insight into the nature and importance of whole person care, the physical, behavioral, emotional, social, and spiritual factors that contribute to well-being. Social determinants of health (SDH) are factors…
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Principles and Practice of Medicine: Sir Stanley Davidson
JMS Pearce Hull, England Davidson’s The Principles & Practice of Medicine, 1956 edition. A textbook of medicine is a single work covering all the major specialist topics, aimed principally at the undergraduate medical student. What constitutes a good textbook of medicine is plainly a subjective judgment; it would be invidious to select one of…
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Saving the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “For to this lady, more than any other single person, save Johns Hopkins himself, does the School of Medicine owe its being.”1– Alan Chesney on Mary Elizabeth Garrett Johns Hopkins (1795–1873) was born in Maryland, one of eleven children of a Quaker couple. His father was a tobacco planter. Johns’ first job…
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What is the point?
Aariya SrinivasanChennai, India I am yet another young doctor struggling to find a place and purpose in this world. When I was in medical school, all I could ever think about was how to get through the next exam. Most of us do. We sit for days and nights together, prepare for fifteen hours a…
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The fainting medical student
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Fall backward if you faint, and not across the patient.”1– Surgeon Sir Lancelot Sprat, in the film Doctor in the House The squeamishness of the beginning medical student or intern during the dissection of a cadaver or in the operating room has become a cinematic cliché. In the films Not as a…
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A day in the team room
Kirin SaintAnn Arbor, MI Today is Monday, May 2. The day starts before the sun has risen, before pink-lavender hues warm the earth, as two internal medicine interns slink in, yawning and bleary eyed, careful not to spill their coffee onto their well-worn scrubs. The residents stride into the room, greet one another, lament the…
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Learning the vocabulary of medicine (and other foreign languages)
Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States Both of my parents were physicians, and their discussions were often medical. One weekend when I was about four years old, I listened to one such conversation at lunch and interrupted to ask, “When I grow up, will I be able to speak the language you speak?” They paused to…
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Not just for the sake of ourselves
Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The Fatal Wounding of Sir Philip Sidney is a painting that I have used often to teach close looking to medical and theological students. The painting is full of details: color, lines, and textures. Faces and body language serve as vessels for emotion and are abundant and finely detailed. It…
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India’s oldest medical schools
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom 15 August 2022 marked the 75th anniversary of Indian independence from British rule. Since independence, the Indian medical diaspora has successfully settled in countries around the world and contributed greatly to their health care systems. Outside India, few are familiar with the history of modern Indian medicine. India was long…