Tag: breast cancer
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Using art to educate about breast cancer
Viney KirpalIndia The World Health Organization Global Cancer Observatory states that in India in 2020, more than 178,361 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in women.1 Some of these cases, of which 90,408 were fatal, could have been diagnosed and treated earlier, but a lack of awareness persists throughout the country. Comparatively, in the…
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Dream on
Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States ChartThis is a 32-year-old female with widely metastatic breast cancer admitted to the hospital for control of shortness of breath and pain. ____ Melissa sits slumped, mouth open, snoring. I pull a chair bedside and gently touch her shoulder. Her head jerks, startled. She wipes drool from her chin…
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Hieroglyphics
Gail GhaiSarasota, Florida, United States The room shuffles nervously as the oncologist takes the microphone. He’s the first speaker at the breast cancer lecture and he does not hesitate. Opens with a memorable phrase: Cancer comes to the warm parts of the body. I’ve read that ancient Egyptians noted how malignancy loved those cozy corners…
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Tracing wisps of hair
Miriam RosenPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was fourteen. For the next nine years, she lived her life with elegance and seemed to do it with ease. She continued her psychiatry practice, only gradually reducing the number of patients she saw. She read the New York Times cover to…
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Signs of diseases in art
Chris ClarkExeter, United Kingdom “Every human being tells a story even if he never speaks.”1 Two paintings hang next to each other in the sumptuous Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome: The Rest on the flight to Egypt and Penitent Magdalen. Both are early works by Caravaggio, and these two diverse biblical women appear to have…
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The female body dissected: Anatomy and John Keats
Niamh Davies-BranchAberdeen, United Kingdom John Keats, poet of the great odes, was also a surgical apprentice at Guy’s Hospital, London from October 1815 to March 1817.1 Although he never spent a day as a surgeon, he completed six years of medical and surgical training. During this period, he maintained an active literary life, composing thirty-nine…
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Maimed
Laura WendorffPlatteville, Wisconsin, United States Your friend says, think of the Amazonswho cut off their right breasts in order to easily draw back their bows. But the loss is not like that. It’s more like a flower dug out of the ground,soil still clinging to its roots like the memoryof heavy clay and earthworms. *…
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Surrealist art and the resolution of absurd
Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel Epigram “There must be a clear preoccupation with death—intimations of mortality . . . Tragic art, romantic art, etc., deals with the knowledge of death.” Mark Rothko, 1958, The Pratt Institute, on the function of art The Problem Fear of death permeates medical practice despite our best efforts to modulate serotonin,…
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A web of days – This is a test – Not again
Joannie Stangeland Poet’s statement Joannie Stangeland wrote these poems for a friend who was fighting breast cancer. Her friend didn’t need help with cooking or driving—and Joannie wanted to support her in some way, so she wrote. What began as one poem flooded into a collection of about 20, and the poems helped Joannie to…