Medical HumanitiesPub Date : 2025-10-22DOI: 10.1136/medhum-2024-012950corr1
{"title":"Correction: <i>The cost of dying exhibition: public, professional and political reactions to a visual exhibition depicting experiences of poverty at the end of life</i>.","authors":"","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-012950corr1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2024-012950corr1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145356344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A note on forgiveness: film as case history.","authors":"Robert Clark Abrams","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013538","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013538","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article begins as a review of the French-Moroccan film, <i>Carved by the Wind</i> (2024), directed by Layla Triqui. The film offers an opportunity to use a 'case history' approach in considering classical and recent psychoanalytic theories of forgiveness, a theme embedded in the storyline. A contemporary model of forgiveness proposed by the Italian psychoanalyst Carla Mucci is applied to the principal character, a woman suffering from the overpowering guilt of infanticide. Here, forgiveness is characterised as a potent exchange between the forgiver and the forgiven, involving truthful witnessing of fact, emotional expression and the emergence of shared empathy. The adaptation of Professor Mucci's psychoanalytic model to the non-clinical setting of the film suggests how forgiveness might foster healing in ordinary life.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145349198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Charity and children's hospitals-exceptionalism, experiences and welfare.","authors":"Francesca Vaghi, Ellen Stewart, Jennifer Crane","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013469","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013469","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145303946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shaping Indian biocitizens: Americanisation through medical education in the TB sanatorium paper <i>Sioux San Sun</i> (1938-1941<b>)</b>.","authors":"Joanna Ziarkowska","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013262","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013262","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The article aims to analyse health-related articles written for <i>Sioux San Sun</i>, an Indian tuberculosis sanatorium paper published between October 1938 and September 1941 in Sioux Sanatorium, Rapid City, South Dakota. To account for the ideological agenda behind the seemingly strictly informative content of the articles devoted to medical education, I apply the concept of biocitizenship. While biocitizenship is usually associated with the era of molecularisation, that is, the 21st century, I argue that it can be traced to the first half of the 20th century, when information campaigns about public health were engaged in the process of shaping medically informed biocitizens. By using particular biomedical language, this process resulted in the reconfiguration of individual personas within diverse spheres of authority, encompassing political, medical, legal and occupational domains. I believe that the main idea behind educational articles in <i>Sioux San Sun</i> is, apart from disseminating medical knowledge, to transform uneducated Indians into biocitizens.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145276149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sara Nourmusavi Nasab, Rebecca Mclaughlan, Chris L Smith
{"title":"The home within care: exploring home-like design in paediatric/adolescent palliative care environments.","authors":"Sara Nourmusavi Nasab, Rebecca Mclaughlan, Chris L Smith","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013379","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study explores the integration of home-like design elements in paediatric/adolescent palliative care inpatient units, drawing on perspectives from both medical and architectural professionals. Recognising the unique developmental and psychosocial needs of young patients, this research explores how the spatial and emotional qualities associated with 'home' are interpreted and operationalised in palliative care environments. A multimethod approach was employed, including a targeted literature review, analysis of seven international paediatric hospice design and semistructured interviews with 22 experts from the medical and architectural fields.The findings identify two central themes in the design of supportive palliative care settings: (1) Supporting Moments of Normalcy, which highlights the importance of daily routines, social connections and familiar activities in fostering emotional well-being, and (2) Architectural Features of Home, which addresses spatial layout, materiality and aesthetic elements that evoke comfort and familiarity of home.A key divergence was observed between the disciplines: medical professionals emphasised the emotional and social aspects of care, while architects prioritised spatial configuration and material considerations. Additionally, the study discusses how design approaches may vary between younger children and adolescents in creating home-like environments. The contrast points to the need for more integrated design strategies that balance clinical functionality with emotional and social well-being. Limitations include the lack of direct input from young patients and families, as well as a limited exploration of cultural interpretations of 'home'. Future research should address these gaps to inform more inclusive and holistic design approaches in paediatric palliative care.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145276183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Communicating multispecies planetary health through multimodal humour and satire.","authors":"Massih Zekavat","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013359","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013359","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article explores the role of humour and satire in promoting multispecies planetary health, with a focus on the work of Indian cartoonist Rohan Chakravarty. Following a critical examination of anthropocentric perspectives in planetary health, the study examines how multimodal satirical narratives critique anthropocentrism, capitalism and environmental injustice through a qualitative analysis of his <i>Green Humour</i> series, while advocating for a holistic understanding of health that integrates human, non-human and ecological well-being. The analysis highlights the potential of humour and satire to engage diverse audiences, encouraging critical reflection on human-nature relationships, challenging systemic inequities and fostering a biocentric perspective. By addressing intersections of race, coloniality, gender and interspecies relationships, the study demonstrates how satirical communication can subvert traditional paradigms and encourage reflection on deeper environmental issues. The findings suggest that humour and satire offer a promising strategy for advancing planetary health, particularly in the context of climate change and global multispecies health promotion.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145226252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"<i>Performing Endometriosis</i> as placental dramaturgy.","authors":"Verónica Rodríguez, Magdalena Mosteanu","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2024-013102","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Performing Endometriosis</i> is an autopathographic piece, written and performed by VR and directed by MM (coauthors of the present article). Divided into very short scenes (called Glimpses), <i>Performing Endometriosis</i> is a solo work about VR's lived experience of stage 4 endometriosis, where audiences are invited to encounter some key moments in her chronic illness journey. Most often experienced by women, endometriosis occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus appears elsewhere in the body, becoming entrapped and finding no bodily exit. One of the uterus' healthy functions (if pregnancy occurs) is developing placenta, a disc of tissue that, among other things, provides nourishment to new life and is spontaneously delivered once it has performed its function. Departing from the ambivalently proliferative character of uteri and looking at feminist theory, feminist pedagogy in theatre training and the medical and health humanities, this article discusses the methodology used during the creative process of <i>Performing Endometriosis</i>, that is, placental dramaturgy. Originally developed towards performance-making, placental dramaturgy is a creative process characterised by a co-nurturing yet independent sense of collaboration. This article unpacks 'placental dramaturgy' with the aim of its replication in other feminist creative processes towards the making and delivering of performance.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145208012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Return to normal? Remembered futures and the post-pandemic.","authors":"Sara DiCaglio","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013303","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013303","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The COVID-19 pandemic was and is many pandemics, experienced unevenly by people of different races, classes, bodies, in different locations, nations and circumstances. Moreover, the pandemic evolved across time and through distinct phases. In the USA, for instance, 2 weeks to stop the spread morphed into a summer marked by George Floyd's death and the ensuing activism; the winter's joy over vaccination availability became concern over its slow, uneven rollout. Waves of changing pop culture phenomena-Netflix shows like <i>Tiger King</i> or <i>Bridgerton</i>, hashtags like #hotvaxsummer-combined with the lived realities of the day-to-day, marked by illness, death, survival, fear, boredom, violence and grief. It is easy to forget the nuances of that day-to-day reality. Pandemics themselves are out of step with time, as a pandemic's past and present are a collapsed future time, as symptoms and diagnoses of infection remain out of sync with actual infection. And now, in this quasi-post-pandemic moment, the rhetoric of 'return to normal' and discourse about 'learning loss' suggest that society should operate uninterrupted-that it is possible to devise a future without the pandemic past. This article introduces the concept of remembered futures, or memories of futures imagined in the past. The pandemic's lived experience was an experience of many presents and possible futures, and so post-pandemic presents must also make room for those past futures imagined in past presents. To make this argument, I look at three works composed and published during Spring and Summer of 2020: Sabrina Orah Mark's <i>Paris Review</i> web column, 'Happily'; Charles Yu's short story 'Systems'; and Nguyên Khôi Nguyễn's graphic novel, 'Bittersweet: A Pandemic Sketchbook'. I argue that post-pandemic futures do not just require a memory of the past, but a memory of the futures of the past, to find their way towards the new possibilities for the future present.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145193414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Embodied wisdom: towards acceptable and helpful explanations for functional somatic symptoms.","authors":"Chloe Saunders, Heidi Frølund Pedersen, Charlotte Ulrikka Rask, Monica Greco, Lisbeth Frostholm","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013380","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013380","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Many people with persistent symptoms navigate illness without an adequate explanatory framework. The systematic disadvantages that arise from the lack of a collectively shared explanation can be considered a form of epistemic injustice, namely hermeneutic injustice. In response to this problem, we explored whether therapeutically relevant and broadly acceptable explanations for symptoms could be developed through iterative stages of dialogue between knowledge partners with lived experience of multisystem functional somatic symptoms (FSS), healthcare professionals across disciplines, symptom researchers, translators and designers. This participatory design project, positioned within a contested area of healthcare, aimed to bridge the gap between patients' and healthcare professionals' epistemic worlds by offering a symptom explanation framework that can reflect complex causality and multiple perspectives. Key conceptual considerations encountered during the process included: the importance of coherence across ontological, scientific and clinical levels of explanation; the need for a therapeutic model of agency that empowers without assigning blame; the integration of temporal dimensions into explanation; the use of metaphor and personal narrative; the role of the internet in shaping illness identity; and the challenge of personalisation of explanations intended for the public domain. The resulting framework is available open-access at www.bodysymptoms.org and presents 28 broadly relevant, acceptable and usable explanations for FSS, drawn from current perspectives of patients, healthcare professionals and researchers across Europe, alongside actionable health advice.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145132182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}