Tag: opioid crisis
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Ahab’s gift: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and the meaning of pain
Xi ChenRochester, New York, United States In the summer months before my first year of medical school, I unfurled the pages of Moby Dick. Immersed in the novel’s adventurous spirit and Shakespearean prose, I followed the narrator from the piers of Nantucket into the Atlantic and waded through Captain Ahab’s quest for the legendary white…
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A wider science
Ahmad Shakeri Howsikan Kugathasan Toronto, Ontario, Canada Storytelling helps healthcare workers learn about the person, not just the patient. Once Upon a Time, by George Hodan. Source Working at a Toronto harm reduction clinic helped reconcile my different points of view on drug addiction. In the classroom, I was a progressive-minded graduate student willing to…
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On your doctor’s orders
Alexandria Szalanczy Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States “More Doctors” Advertisment. Camel Cigarettes. 1946. Released and uploaded by the Food and Drug Association, https://www.flickr.com/photos/fdaphotos/7029895715. Long before physicians faced a nation crippled by an opioid crisis, their predecessors lived and worked in a nation dominated by cigarettes. By 1953, 47% of Americans smoked cigarettes, including half…