Tag: Summer 2013
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Making medical education interesting and exciting
Anuradha Joshi Gujarat, India Can we make an education system which will retain smiles on the faces of our children?1 — Abdul Kalam Image by Anuradha Joshi At a time when doctors are confronted with a veritable explosion of new facts and information, teachers in medical schools should face up to the challenge…
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A classic case of vanity
Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece In The Citadel, A. J. Cronin’s quintessential medical novel, the hero, Dr. Andrew Manson, still a junior doctor in country practice, is unhappy with his lowly professional status and wonders how he can improve matters. Christine, his devoted wife, urges him to try and obtain a higher medical qualification, perhaps…
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Waiting
Fergus ShanahanIreland “Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful.”― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot1 Waiting. It’s an inescapable part of the human condition, perhaps, but it is a big part of the experience of illness. Being ill is being patient. Why otherwise use such a word? “Nobody, not even a lover, waits as intensely…
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Doctor’s daughter: reflections on a family’s role in a physician’s practice
Constance Putnam Concord, Massachusetts, United States Schoolyard taunts generally convey an obvious message to all who hear them: “Fatso,” “Four Eyes,” “Slowpoke,” “Dumbo.” One directed at me when I was a child, however, baffled me: “You think you’re so smart, just ’cause your dad’s a doctor!” To be sure, my dad was a doctor,…
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Théodore Géricault: Kleptomania
Kleptomania is defined as a recurrent compulsion to steal. Affected persons often act on impulse and are not motivated by economic necessities. They tend not to use the objects they steal but may return them, hide them, or throw them away. They seem to get gratification from the very act of stealing, or at least…
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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and medicine: A triumph over infirmity
William R. AlburyGeorge M. WeiszNew South Wales, Australia The “Toulouse-Lautrec Syndrome” Renowned 19th century French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s most obvious association with medicine is through his bone disease. The condition from which he probably suffered was first described in 1954 by the French physician Robert Weissman-Netter. It was named pycnodysostosis in 1962 by Marateaux…