A visit to New York: a wonderful town
George Dunea Originally published in the British Medical Journal, December 8, 1979. New York remains exciting, vast, wonderfully alive. On Fifth Avenue, elegant ladies promenade in the sun, ride in horse carriages, spend their money at Gucci’s and Tiffany’s, or cast wistful eyes at the window where Empress Josephine’s tiara and the emerald-studded crown […]
I can take care of myself – if you teach me how!
Nancy Burke Rhiannon is five. She has rheumatoid arthritis. Every Monday she gets an injection of an anti-inflammatory drug, and she doesn’t like it! During her Christmas visit to see “Nana” (her nickname for me, her grandmother), there were three Mondays. Katy, Rhiannon’s mother, had requested that “Nana” give her the injections. It’s been […]
Grumpy doctors and the short story
Tony Miksanek Southern Illinois, USA This essay is based on a presentation made at the University of Iowa College of Medicine for the conference “The Examined Life: Writing and the Art of Medicine” on April 24, 2008. It isn’t always necessary to take the temperature of fictional physicians to know that they are hot. […]
Diagnosing defectives: disability, gender and eugenics in the United States, 1910-1924
Sara Vogt Chicago, IL, United States Introduction The science of eugenics developed in countries around the world such as Great Britain, the United States, and Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century as a means of fighting emergent public health and social problems like tuberculosis, prostitution, and the so-called degeneration of the race. […]
Has medicine lost the ethics battle?
Patrick D. Guinan This article was first published in the May 1998 issue of Linacre Quarterly Modern medicine began with the Greeks and has developed over the past 2,500 years. Medical ethics, which was also initiated by the Greeks, and summarized in the Hippocratic Oath, has guided the moral actions of the physician in his […]
A cultural immersion from a nursing perspective
Carolyn Hope Smeltzer Recently I had the opportunity to visit Vietnam with a Loyola University-Chicago group. The purpose of the trip, organized for Loyola faculty and supporters, was to immerse ourselves in the culture, the values, the life, and the healthcare system of the Vietnamese people. We observed and learned much on this international […]
Simple gestures: a nursing student’s journey through the ICU
Elizabeth Cambier Chicago, Illinois, USA For those of us who have chosen to pursue careers in the healthcare field, the lessons we learn in life are what make us true professionals. Like the finishing touches that transform a sketch into a work of art, our lives allow us to read between the lines of […]
From the grotesque to the sublime: innovations in nursing education
Judith Frei The American Association of Colleges of Nursing 2008 document Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice describes the curricular elements for Baccalaureate Nursing Education.1 The very first essential asserts that a liberal education in the sciences and arts is foundational to professional nursing practice and directs faculty to include in the […]
One thing we can’t live without
Liam Farrell Crossmaglen, Ireland When God appeared to me and ordained me as his prophet, I was rather disappointed. He was tall and rather overtly Aryan, with a long, white beard (no genuflection to the minorities), and worst of all, had a cultured English accent. He doesn’t sound one bit like Morgan Freeman, I […]
Progressions, 2009
Zachary T. Hollis (Spring 2009) Artist statement Progressions is a work inspired by M.C. Escher, admired by many as a visual mathematician. The use of negative space and positive space, their play on each other, and how we perceive what we see has always been of great interest to Zachary Hollis. In regards to the […]