When Pigs Fly Emotional Support Animals, Service Dogs and the Politics of Legitimacy across Species Boundaries

by Justyna Wlodarczyk About a year ago, I attended a lecture by a prominent expert in therapy dogs who used the term “emotional support animal” in his talk, accompanied by an image of a pig on a plane in the PowerPoint presentation. The mere mention of the term was enough to get the audience – […]

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Being Well Together: Human-Animal Collaboration, Companionship and the Promotion of Health and Wellbeing

by Robert Kirk, Neil Pemberton and Tom Quick This research forum is titled Being Well Together: human-animal collaboration, companionship and the promotion of health and wellbeing, It grew out a meeting at the University of Manchester in September 2018, supported by the UK’s Wellcome Trust. We invited academics working in disciplines across the humanities and […]

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The Politics of Female Pain: Women’s Citizenship, Twilight Sleep and the Early Birth Control Movement

by Lauren MacIvor Thompson Thanks for reading “The Politics of Female Pain: Women’s Citizenship, Twilight Sleep, and the Early Birth Control Movement” in this month’s issue of Medical Humanities! If you are interested in the contemporary issues surrounding women’s health, pregnancy, and labor and delivery, this article will help shed some light on how we […]

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Sophistry in American Medicine? Platonic Reflections on Expertise, Influence and the Public’s Health in the Democratic Context

by Evan V Goldstein So long as I maintain this Oath faithfully and without corruption, may it be granted to me to partake of life fully and the practice of my art, gaining the respect of all men for all time. However, should I transgress this Oath and violate it, may the opposite be my […]

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From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to Absolute Dependence in an Intensive Care Unit. Reflections on a Clinical Account

by Tina Catherine Sideris This paper tells the story of one man’s experience of terrifying hallucinations and nightmares in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). His experience draws attention to the reality that intensive care treatment can cause emotional suffering severe enough to be identified as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). At the same time this patient’s […]

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United in Film: Psychiatrist Dr Nabil Elkot Recommends Drama Therapy for Patients and Doctors

Dr Nabil Elkot is a senior Egyptian consultant psychiatrist and the head of the addiction unit in El-Rakhawi Hospital in Cairo. He has a special interest in group therapy for managing addiction and dependency. He was involved in in co-writing, supervising and acting in three landmark TV series: ‘Under control’, ‘Free fall’, and ‘Above suspicion,’ […]

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Lessons from Frankenstein: Narrative Myth as Ethical Model

by Yvette Koepke In the past year, scientific breakthroughs have shown both how relevant the questions raised by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein remain, and how commonly the novel gets used as a reference point in ethical debate. A YouTube comment on a news clip reporting the first successful cloning of monkeys in a Chinese lab insisted, […]

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Feet and Fertility in the Healing Temples: A Symbolic Communication System Between Gods and Men?

by Silvia Marinozzi Our contribution, Feet and Fertility in the healing temples: a symbolic communication system between gods and men?, aims at proposing a new interpretation of a traditional topic in the archaeological and historical medical studies. There are plenty of anatomical ex-votos of uteruses and feet found in temple repositories in Greece and Southern […]

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A Drive Through the Heart of Darkness

Review of ‘The Trial of Ratko Mladic’, directed by Henry Singer, and Robert Miller, showing in ‘London Human Rights Watch Film Festival’ 13–22 March 2019, https://ff.hrw.org/london by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York The Trial of Ratko Mladic begins on 22 November 2017 in The Hague, just as the world is anticipating a […]

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