Tag: Medicine
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It always comes down to medicine
Matthew TurnerWashington, United States For six days, the brigands held a knife to the city’s throat. Outside a handful of settlements far to the northeast—which any of the city’s inhabitants would firmly tell you didn’t count—Charleston was the jewel of England’s possessions in the New World. The wealth that the port city generated had fattened…
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On becoming a disabled physician
Mel EbelingBirmingham, Alabama, United States The same prominent scar blemishes each foot: beginning two inches below my big toe, it slithers along the medial aspect of my foot, making a hairpin turn around my ankle before coming to an abrupt halt on the opposite side, two inches below my pinky toe. I have bilateral congenital…
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Villanelle
Jolene WonChicago, Illinois, United States I did not know today would be your last –we see no end for those that we hold dear.If I had known I’d not have let it pass. The nurse who knows she can’t set down her taskscontinues on, tries not to shed a tear.I did not know today would…
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The forerunner
Shafiqah SamarasamMalaysia Southeast Asia has experienced detrimental, large-scale air pollution for decades. Known as the “Southeast Asia haze,” this transboundary pollution is largely caused by illegal agricultural fires in the forests of Indonesia. The lingering smoke results in breathing difficulties and adverse health outcomes for the citizens of the region.1 With haze becoming a prevalent, annual…
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On beauty and medical ethics
John Eberly Jr.Anderson, South Carolina, United StatesLydia DugdaleNew York, United States Philosophers know that beauty is moving, arresting, enrapturing. It captures the attention and then calls the viewer to action—pursuing, partaking, creating. Beautiful things invite participation; we find ourselves lingering and listening long. We leave inspired and moved to respond. As artists and poets have…
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Under the lime tree: Medicine, poetry, and the education of the senses
Alan BleakleySennen, West Cornwall, United Kingdom When in the summer of 1797 Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s wife Sara accidentally spilled hot milk over his foot, causing serious burns such that Coleridge could not walk, he sat in the garden of his friend Thomas Poole’s house under a lime tree, immobilized. A party of friends, meanwhile, had…
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In sickness and in health: misogyny in medicine
Shreya SharmaOntario, Canada “You see, he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?”1 These words, spoken by the unnamed narrator of Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s 1892 short story The Yellow Wallpaper, could have been articulated by many women about their medical experiences. Women have long had to navigate a healthcare system designed…
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Aunty Felicia
Boma SomiariPort Harcourt, Nigeria I can’t stand blood. So my goal was to stay as far as I could from hospitals and all they come with. But then change came to me when Aunty Felicia came to my village with a missionary organization that chose medicine and science as the medium for their message. As…
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Book review: The Origins of Modern Science
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Science and medicine have long been intertwined: many advances in the field of medicine would not have been possible without prior knowledge of fundamental science. It is not surprising, therefore, that a medical historian would also find the history of science fascinating. In this book, Ofer Gal has described the…