Tag: Winter 2016
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The General Infirmary at Leeds
JMS PearceHull, United Kingdom “The best hospitals in the world are not those which merely use new knowledge, but those which create it.”—Attributed to Sir George Pickering, 1960 Modern hospitals originated in fourth-century Byzantium. They succeed not because they housed the grandest, lavishly equipped buildings, but because of the excellence and dedication of their staff.…
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San Francisco General Hospital: treating AIDS on Ward 5B
Jared GriffinPennsauken, New Jersey, United States Walking down Potrero Hill’s 23rd Street past the San Francisco General Hospital today, one would never suspect the history that lies beyond its brick walls. Today, AIDS has faded to the background of the national discourse, even in San Francisco, the one American city perhaps most famous for its…
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Pennsylvania Hospital
Hannah JoynerTakoma Park, Maryland, United States The Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia opened its doors more than two decades before the American colonies separated from Britain. Originally designed to care for all patients regardless of their circumstances, the hospital admitted those who could pay and those who could not. From the first days of the institution,…
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Peter Bent Brigham Hospital
Anaeze C. Offodile IIJoel T. KatzBoston, Massachusetts, United States Before his death in 1877, Peter Bent Brigham, a prominent restaurateur, businessman and abolitionist in the Boston area, left a significant bequest for the creation of a hospital to provide care for the indigent and sick patients of Suffolk County.1 This would materialize several decades later…
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Public health measures derived from the Jewish tradition
Noam ZeffrenTova CheinRobert SternNew York, New York, United States Jewish ingenuity has contributed widely to theology, philosophy, science, and many other areas of human endeavor. To the practice of medicine, influences from Jewish luminaries include Moses Maimonides, Sigmund Freud, Paul Ehrlich, and Jonah Salk. Less recognized are contributions from the Old Testament (or Torah) and…
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Pascal’s disease
Bo LaestadiusStockholm, Sweden The French mathematician, physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal was born in 1623. At the age of twelve he had already studied Euclid´s geometry on his own and had written a paper about sound waves. A few years later he designed and built a calculator. In mathematics he has given his name to…
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Out of the medicine cabinet: An out doctor in a closeted country
Anirban ChatterjeeDilshad Garden, Delhi, India Earlier this year, having planned an interview-based analysis of the issues faced by transgender (LGBT) medical professionals acquiring medical education in India, I started contacting medical students and professionals in the LGBT community. Since I myself am a part of this community, I was able to locate them quite easily.…
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An emigrant doctor’s linguistic journey on crutches
Zeynel A. KarciogluCharlottesville, Virginia, United States I am a linguistic cripple like many other immigrants. When I came to the United States as a foreign medical graduate I was rather young, but the neurocognitive linguistic skills of my Turkish mother tongue were already established in my cortex. The Turkish language, as inherited from my parents,…
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Aristotelian gender bias in modern depictions of fertilization
Brit TrogenNew York, New York In 1991, anthropologist Emily Martin argued that accounts of human fertilization in medical textbooks often applied gendered language and stereotypes to anthropomorphized representations of the sperm and egg.1 “Masculine” sperm were depicted as strong adventurers, heroes, and conquerors, actively swimming towards the egg and “penetrating” its defenses.1 “Feminine” oocytes, on…
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The influence of the internet on medical student learning: A personal perspective
P. Ravi ShankarOranjestad, Aruba The Medical College sprawls across a rocky hillside at Mulangunnathukavu (a real mouthful of a name) in a village some twelve kilometers from the town of Thrissur in central Kerala. It is a converted tuberculosis sanatorium, its various departments and administrative buildings housed in modified buildings. The kingdom of Cochin in…