{"title":"Regulated Pandemic Spaces: Spatial Crises in COVID Comics.","authors":"Ishani Anwesha Joshi, Sathyaraj Venkatesan","doi":"10.1007/s10912-024-09864-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-024-09864-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Close-reading sequential comics and cartoons such as He Zhu's \"Lockdown,\" Rivi Handler-Spitz's \"Morning Commute,\" Yang Ji's \"Quarantine,\" and Thi Bui, Will Evans, Sarah Mirk, Amanda Pike, and Esther Kaplan's \"In/Vulnerable,\" this article investigates the networked spatial crises that have emerged during COVID-19. As the global pandemic reshaped social, economic, and cultural landscapes, it is crucial to understand the spatial implications of these transformations. By analyzing graphic medical texts, which serve as visual narratives that capture the lived experiences and perceptions of individuals within these crises, the present essay offers a nuanced exploration of the intricate relationships between space, society, and the effects of the pandemic. The article identifies and examines the various spatial crises that have emerged in the COVID era, such as disrupted urban environments, altered social dynamics, spaces of contamination, contraction of space, and the reconfiguration of workspaces. Drawing on theorists like Michael Foucault and Henri Lefebvre, this essay illustrates how these crisis-induced spatial transformations are represented, experienced, and contested. Ultimately, the article not only contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between the pandemic and space but also addresses the challenges of our evolving world.</p>","PeriodicalId":45518,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141564801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Global Political Logics and Mainstream Discourses on Illness in the Declarations of the State of Exception in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Case of the USA, France, and Spain.","authors":"Mar Rosàs Tosas","doi":"10.1007/s10912-024-09856-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-024-09856-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>At the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, several countries declared \"states of exception,\" that is, authorized legal devices that, in the face of circumstances deemed catastrophic, permit the implementation of extraordinary measures and the temporary suspension of some rights in order to restore the previous state of affairs as soon as possible. This paper offers a comparative textual analysis of the different states of exception declared in the USA, France, and Spain. I argue that these texts constitute a privileged site to explore how prevalent global political logics and mainstream discourses on illness are interwoven. Regarding the global political logics in play, I hold that these declarations constitute an instantiation of democracy's autoimmune character; it attacks itself in order to protect itself. Regarding mainstream discourses on illness, I explore how illness is regarded as a threat to one's self (by something seemingly other) and the notion that therapy must consist of securing the self's triumph over anything seemingly other. This twofold analysis reveals that an aporetic dialectic between self and other-as regards politics and illness-operates in these declarations, most likely because it is, in fact, one and the same dialectic, upon which Western epistemology rests. Furthermore, I suggest that these texts reflect and promote these dominant logics, contributing to shape human relationships around the globe in a certain dangerous way.</p>","PeriodicalId":45518,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141451843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Value of Researcher Reflexivity in the Coproduction of Public Policy: A Practical Perspective.","authors":"Yamini Cinamon Nair, Mark Fabian","doi":"10.1007/s10912-024-09853-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10912-024-09853-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Coproduction of public policy involves bringing together technical experts, practitioners, and people with lived experience of that policy to collaboratively and deliberatively codesign it. Coproduction can leverage different ways of knowing and evaluative perspectives on a policy area to enhance the legitimacy and efficaciousness of policymaking. This article argues that researcher reflexivity is crucial for getting the most out of coproduction ethically and epistemically. By reflecting on our positionality, habitus, and biases, we can gain new insights into how we affect the research design, production and analysis of data, and communication of findings. This reflexivity helps to disrupt power dynamics that underly research and policymaking, helping to realise the radical potential of coproduction to democratise practice, empower citizens, and make research more relational. We demonstrate the value of reflexivity through an analysis of our work coproducing a theory of thriving in financial hardship in partnership with the UK national anti-poverty charity Turn2us. We contextualise our advocacy for reflexivity within the practical realities of advancing coproduction in the UK today.</p>","PeriodicalId":45518,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141443512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Use of Hand Gestures (Hastas) in Bharatanatyam for Creative Aging.","authors":"Sloka Iyengar","doi":"10.1007/s10912-024-09861-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-024-09861-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Bharatanatyam is a traditional Indian dance form that involves the use of facial expressions and body movements to tell stories. A key aspect of Bharatanatyam is the use of hand gestures, also known as hastas, which are used to communicate with specificity and precision. Hastas are symbols, and along with facial expressions and body movements that are contextually relevant, they help to communicate narratives. I am a neuroscientist and have been immersed in Bharatanatyam for 25 years; true to the tradition of the form that emphasizes lifelong scholarship and immersion, I continue to learn from my gurus and supplement my dance training with the study of Carnatic music and Sanskrit. My journey in creative aging started after losing my mother and witnessing the lack of access to expressive movement that was available to her; for fear of falls, my previously-dynamic mother spent the last three months of her life without leaving the bed or feeling the sunshine on her skin. By using hastas in the context of creative aging, I describe how we can promote the acquisition of new skills, the physical benefits even in the face of arthritis and limited mobility, the ability to ascribe meaning to the gestures, and the capability to form new meanings and new gestures that are contemporary and relevant to the lives of older adults. Above all, we can engage older adults actively in the creation and appreciation of art.</p>","PeriodicalId":45518,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141443511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Narrating Loneliness: Isolation, Disaffection, and the Contemporary Novel.","authors":"Neus Rotger","doi":"10.1007/s10912-024-09855-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-024-09855-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article focuses on the ways in which narrative accounts of loneliness in literature problematize current definitions of this important and yet underexplored determinant of health. I argue that the prevailing conceptualization of loneliness in health research, with a general emphasis on social prescribing, obscures other dimensions of loneliness beyond social connectedness that also need to be accounted for in its definition. Drawing on narrative approaches to health and care and taking as a case study Santiago Lorenzo's Spanish novel Los asquerosos (2018), the article gestures toward a more political-rather than exclusively subjective and relational-reading of loneliness. It shows how the novel's exploration of loneliness as an ambivalent experience of tranquility and disaffection questions whether there is any direct causation between loneliness and aloneness or social isolation, presenting loneliness not so much as a problem or a social pain in need of curing, but as a symptom of a larger structural crisis. The article also reflects on the ability of literary narratives to illuminate, discuss, and ultimately challenge the underlying dynamics of loneliness, raising questions about how we understand these narratives and the type of agency we attribute to them.</p>","PeriodicalId":45518,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141440947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Comma.","authors":"Ryan J Petteway","doi":"10.1007/s10912-024-09842-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10912-024-09842-4","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45518,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"221-222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139933466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Two Perspectives.","authors":"Katarzyna Rakoczy","doi":"10.1007/s10912-023-09832-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10912-023-09832-y","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45518,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"217-219"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11068826/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138811832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conjoined.","authors":"Woods Nash","doi":"10.1007/s10912-024-09843-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10912-024-09843-3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45518,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"223-224"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139933467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Just One Day.","authors":"Stephi Cham","doi":"10.1007/s10912-023-09830-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10912-023-09830-0","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45518,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"215-216"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138811831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Raymond A Cattaneo, Natalie González, Abby Leafe, Rachel Fleishman
{"title":"Pediatric Resident Perceptions of a Narrative Medicine Curriculum.","authors":"Raymond A Cattaneo, Natalie González, Abby Leafe, Rachel Fleishman","doi":"10.1007/s10912-023-09817-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10912-023-09817-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Training residents to become humanistic physicians capable of empathy, compassionate communication, and holistic patient care is among our most important tasks as physician educators. Narrative medicine aims to foster those highly desirable characteristics, and previous studies have shown it to be successful in fostering self-reflection, emotional processing, and preventing burnout. We aimed to evaluate pediatric residents' perceptions of a novel narrative medicine curriculum. After the initiation of a longitudinal narrative medicine curriculum, focus groups were conducted with residents who participated in at least one narrative medicine session. The curriculum was viewed positively, and residents found the sessions to be helpful in developing empathy, offering a space for reflection, and introducing new perspectives. Challenges noted were perception of relevance, timing of sessions, and interpretation by non-native English-speaking residents. With attention to linguistics and thematic undertones, narrative medicine is a feasible, replicable, and accepted teaching modality for pediatric residents to foster empathy, process emotions, and participate in self-reflection.</p>","PeriodicalId":45518,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"157-169"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138488717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}