Pharmaceutical marketing in America
Adil Menon Ali Mchaourab Cleveland, Ohio, United States A Pharmacy for Every Need (plate 24). Charles Émile Jacque. 1843. The Art Institute of Chicago. Within the past few decades, there has been a great change in how the pharmaceutical industry markets its products in the United States. Prices of medical drugs have skyrocketed as […]
Fat by choice: a quest for meaning
Amer Toutonji Charleston, South Carolina, USA Tom-Ton – Fat Boy. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY 4.0 An early bird, Brian wakes up no later than 5:30 am to get on with the first meal of the day: twelve eggs and ten sausages, or their equivalent. Most recently weighing in at 530 pounds, Bryan, or […]
Enfreakment in the medicalization of difference
Camille Kroll Chicago, Illinois, USA An advertisement for the Barnum and Bailey circus, of which P.T. Barnum was a cofounder Credit: Wellcome Collection License: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) terms and conditions Exalted showman P.T. Barnum was thrilled when he discovered Joice Heth, a severely disabled elderly slave woman. In grotesque detail, he […]
Our divisive political climate and our ability to treat patients without bias
Shane Sobrio Washington, DC, United States Image courtesy of the author Politics are divisive. That should not be a shock to anyone. However, the political climate in the USA at the moment is more than just divisive. Lately, there seems to be an underlying disdain for those we disagree with, in a way that […]
Drug war or race war? Effects of illegal drug distribution in the African-American community
Denise Powell San Francisco, California, United States Bernard Noble and daughter “Cajun cook got 13 years for two joints.” The Clemency Report. Link 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 […]
Pushing back into chaos
Kyra McComas Salt Lake City, Utah, United States The pathway of pain according to René Descartes: “Particles of heat” (A) close to the foot (B) contact the skin and pull threads (C) up the body, that “open the pores” (D, E) and allows “animal spirits to flow from a cavity (F) into the muscles,” […]
The beauty of gender diversity
Lisa Shugoll Asheville, North Carolina, USA Caelin Lee, Crux, 2014, pen and ink on paper. https://www.caelinlee.com. Used with permission of artist. The arts have always provided a rich source of material for the type of introspection and contemplation that can deepen our ability to respond empathetically to those whose concerns and life experiences are […]
The language game of medicine
Gunjan Sharma Devon, United Kingdom Photo by Ludomił on Unsplash “The arrow points only in the application that a living being makes of it.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein1 The Language Game Language is a fascinating concept when viewed through a philosophical lens. Imagine if we no longer had a word for jealousy. Would that […]
Gender identity in the twenty-first century
Piper Haitsuka Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, USA Transgender role model, Casil Mcarthur Identity characterizes who a person is. Physical, mental, or chemical identity can have an array of diverse meanings. Gender and sex are two very different concepts that influence identity, but are often confused as being interchangeable words.1 Sex is a biological classification, whereas gender […]
Seeing things differently: a reflection on clinical photography
Michaela Clark Cape Town, South Africa Image courtesy of the Pathology Learning Centre, University of Cape Town Looking into the face of a patient is a necessary part of the clinical experience. Yet despite the physical proximity achieved in the doctor’s office, on the operating table, or in the petri dish, it is only […]