Medical Humanities最新文献

{"title":"Graphic medicine in mental health nursing education: a phenomenological approach to using graphic pathographies as a pedagogical tool.","authors":"María José Mompeán-Mejías, Rocío Juliá-Sanchis","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013281","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013281","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Training healthcare students on topics of psychiatry and mental health is challenging because, besides scientific knowledge, addressing attitudes towards mental health is equally important. In this sense, graphic pathographies, understood as stories of patient experience, can foster meaningful learning opportunities and support a deeper understanding of the patient's perspective from a more social, emotional and inclusive approach to the healthcare discourse. The purpose of the present research was to explore nursing students' experiences with a graphic medicine-based intervention in a mental health and psychiatric context. A qualitative study was conducted using a focus group methodology. The Spanish graphic pathography addressing schizophrenia, <i>Las Voces y el Laberinto</i>, was introduced. Four main themes were identified: (1) advantages of graphic pathographies in comparison with other educational materials, emphasising their capacity to enhance information retention, capture the reader's sustained attention and encourage a uniform interpretation of concepts; (2) potential of graphic pathographies in the assimilation of theory, where students point out that these narratives facilitate the understanding of mental disorders, promote empathy and favour critical reflection on stigma; and (3) usefulness of graphic pathographies in the transfer of knowledge, evidencing its potential for the training of professionals, patient education and social awareness; (4) from reluctance to acceptance: a change in the perception of graphic pathographies in education. The findings advocate that graphic pathographies can enhance learning and reflection on complex mental health content in the context of a well-designed and facilitated teaching session, in which students have prior knowledge on the topic.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145076310","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":"Purity as power: orthorexia nervosa and the moral governance of health in neoliberal wellness culture.","authors":"Omer Horovitz","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013331","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Orthorexia nervosa (ON) - a pathological obsession with healthy eating - has emerged as a cultural pathology intricately woven into neoliberal ideologies and biopolitical regimes. This paper critically analyses ON through the lens of power, foregrounding Foucault's concept of biopower and contemporary theories of moral governance, digital surveillance and gendered health expectations. It argues that the rise of ON is not merely a psychological phenomenon but a reflection of broader socio-political forces that moralise food, discipline bodies and construct health as an individualised, virtuous identity. Clean eating becomes a moral imperative; health becomes a site of self-surveillance; and digital wellness culture functions as a disciplinary apparatus. Drawing on interdisciplinary frameworks, it offers a socio-cognitive model of ON shaped by psychological vulnerability, algorithmically curated content and neoliberal demands for bodily optimisation. This work calls for a re-theorisation of ON that situates it within contemporary ideological terrain. It offers a novel socio-cognitive model that links individual psychopathology with biopolitical power, digital culture and gendered health expectations. It provides critical insights into mental health practice, public health policy and feminist thought critique.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145070695","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":"Reproductive technology's animal unconscious: multispecies motherhood and humanimal horror.","authors":"Georgia Walton, Dominic O'Key","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013322","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Preclinical animal testing has played a critical role within medical history. Yet it remains an underdiscussed topic within the medical humanities. What might happen, then, if we analyse the animal studies of the lab via the method of cultural critique that is animal studies? This essay responds to this question by exploring the roles that animals play, and are made to play, within the technologies for, debates about and narratives of human reproduction. The essay is comparative. First, it focuses on how the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) represents their experiments with lambs as part of their development of an artificial placenta. Then, it juxtaposes these narratives with two recent horror films that dramatise and hyperbolise the very human-animal relations on which CHOP's research relies. Both Laura Moss's <i>Birth/Rebirth</i> (2023) and Valdimar Jóhannsson's <i>Lamb</i> (2021) can be read, we suggest, as narratives of multispecies family-making that, in their representation of human reproduction as dependent on the exploitation of animal reproduction, signify and subvert the species hierarchies that attend animal testing. Yet we also wish to track how each of these films, just like CHOP, ultimately figures animals as sacrificial objects. We argue that reading these texts together illuminates the politics of species that undergirds CHOP's research, its medical humanities critique and the horror genre. More than simply adding an animal studies perspective to the debate about the future of human reproduction, this essay models forms of reading that, by combining the interpretive practices of animal studies and medical humanities, unsettle the ways that animals are positioned as literal and symbolic surrogates for the human.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145034444","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":"Relevance of Georg Grosz's Weimar-era drawings to promoting social justice and health equity in contemporary society.","authors":"Eberechukwu Akadinma, Dennis Raphael","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2024-013132","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The arts and humanities can direct attention to the health-threatening effects of adverse living and working conditions and the political and economic systems that spawn them. Most of these efforts aim to improve healthcare by promoting empathy and sensitivity among health professionals towards patients and improving clinical skills. However, less effort is devoted towards improving living and working conditions-the structural and social determinants of health-that cause illness and make managing illness difficult. Using the arts and humanities to suggest how society could be changed to promote health is even less common, especially in regard to our economic system of capitalism. In this paper, we consider how the acerbic art of Georg Grosz, which critiqued the political, economic and social life of Weimar-period Germany, may find renewed relevance to the contemporary scene in Canada and other nations under the thrall of neoliberal approaches to governance. We suggest that Grosz's art can be a rich stimulus for promoting social justice and health equity through reflection and discussion, research, and then action to direct attention to how living and working conditions threaten health and how the economic and political systems that create these health-threatening conditions can be reformed or replaced. These activities can take place in classrooms, as part of professional development activities, or form the basis of research studies and advocacy efforts. Evidence of the usefulness of this approach obtained through discussions with undergraduate health studies students is presented.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145034515","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":"Full circle: a patient, a baby and the making of a doctor.","authors":"Roshni Jagaram","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013441","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This reflective commentary recounts the journey of a young intern through her first and final obstetrics and gynaecology postings, linked unexpectedly by a single patient and her family. First under my care during an early clinical rotation. A year later, through a chance encounter, when her narrative intersected with mine once more. This piece explores the continuity of care, the unseen emotional bonds between patients and trainees, and the quiet, serendipitous moments that shape one's medical identity during formative years of training.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145001676","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":"'Uyun Teta: blindness, sightedness and the stories in-between.","authors":"Abir Hamdar","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013300","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013300","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article is a critical and creative essay that employs the story of my late maternal grandmother's experience of blindness to interrogate the relationship between blindness and sight in the context of contemporary Lebanese social, cultural and political life. To this end, the essay draws on retrospective autoethnography and memoirs as well as on critical disability studies and visual culture to reflect on broader notions of seeing and unseeing. In addition, I also incorporate a creative component to imaginatively narrate the relation of blindness and sight, especially in contexts marked by multiple forms of sociopolitical vulnerability and fragility.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144993681","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":"How far back does medical consent go? A journey through Ottoman legal records in Ottoman Empire.","authors":"Özlem Yenerer Çakmut, Alev Özeroğlu, Gürkan Sert","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013477","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013477","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Tracing the evolution of informed consent from the Hippocratic tradition to the Ottoman Empire reveals its enduring role as a fundamental ethical principle supporting patient autonomy. Spanning diverse medical and cultural landscapes-including Ancient Greece, Byzantium, Islamic medicine and Ottoman legal practices-this historical trajectory uncovers a continuous and evolving dialogue between physicians and patients. It reflects a persistent recognition of the moral and practical necessity for physicians to share medical information and for patients to engage voluntarily in decisions regarding their health. A particularly significant historical juncture is found in the Ottoman Empire. Especially noteworthy are 16th-century and 17th-century court records from Istanbul, which provide some of the earliest concrete examples of formalised patient consent in the Ottoman era. These records, found in qadi (kadı) sicilleri (Ottoman court registers), document patients giving explicit permission-often witnessed and recorded-for surgical procedures. In our study, we employed a methodology that began with a systematic review of relevant national and international literature, followed by the examination of qadi court records from the years 1579 to 1663. Through a concept-based search, 21 documents from the Istanbul Province's kadı registers were located, analysed and evaluated in terms of their informed consent elements. Such documentation demonstrates that informed consent, although not institutionalised in the modern sense, was already being practised as a legally and ethically meaningful process. These examples represent not only a cultural and legal continuity from earlier historical practices but also a key moment in the formal recognition of the patient's voice in medical decision-making. By analysing these sources, the study not only reveals how these legal responsibilities were understood and practised in premodern contexts, but also offers valuable historical insight that enriches contemporary discourse on medical ethics and law. This continuity shows that informed consent is not merely a modern legal formality, but a long-standing ethical commitment embedded across cultures and civilisations.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144973748","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":"Rethinking reflexivity, replicability and rigour in qualitative research.","authors":"Qin Xiang Ng, Kevin Xiang Zhou","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013293","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This commentary re-examines recent proposals to define quality in qualitative research through a singular unifying framework, situating them alongside historical and ongoing debates in qualitative methodology. By juxtaposing different traditions, this piece highlights areas of tension between procedural notions of rigour and interpretive approaches that emphasise the co-constructed, context-bound nature of meaning. The discussion argues that quality in qualitative research cannot be captured by a single metric or universal rule. Reflexive approaches resist rigid frameworks, instead favouring a situational and evolving engagement with meaning. While efforts to promote transparency and accountability in qualitative research are valuable, researchers should adopt methodological criteria aligned with their epistemological commitments. We argue that qualitative research can be considered rigorous insofar as it is deeply reflective, explicitly contextualised and transparent about its interpretive manoeuvres.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144973931","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":"Memory erasure as transformative experience: reconsidering the moral significance of neurotechnological interventions.","authors":"Junjie Yang","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013373","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013373","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We now possess various neurotechnologies that precisely modulate the nervous system. Among these, memory erasure technology (MET), aiming to weaken or eliminate traumatic memories via neuropharmacology, neurostimulation and optogenetics, has sparked intense ethical debate. At its core, the ethical complexity of MET stems from foundational questions about its moral significance. A neurophenomenological approach reveals that MET generates experiences that are epistemically and personally transformative, thereby influencing the process of decision-making. At the individual ethical level, the consequences of MET are difficult to assess rationally, as individuals make transformative choices amid profound uncertainty regarding how their experiential and value frameworks may shift in the future. At the social ethical level, MET challenges the legal, historical, distributive and epistemic dimensions of justice related to memory, while its transformative potential simultaneously offers opportunities to transcend existing forms of injustice. Thus, the argument that MET is morally unacceptable because it deviates from natural forgetting fundamentally misunderstands the basis of its ethical implications. The moral significance of MET is neither instrumental nor contextual; rather, it resides in the inherent capacity of neurotechnological interventions to generate transformative experiences that fundamentally reshape human moral decision-making.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144973944","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":"Expertise in global health and global health ethics.","authors":"Sridhar Venkatapuram","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2025-013482","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2025-013482","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This commentary discusses how professionalisation and expertise is both a positive, constructive project as well as an exclusionary one. The discussion suggests that global health, rather than being a new sub-field of science catalysed by new discoveries, is better understood as being part of the economic and scientific expansionism of the few richest G7 countries. It is argued that global health expertise, aside from scientific expertise, also involves expertise in being a driver of the expansionism. It also points to ethical expansionism and signs of epistemic domination of global health ethics by scholars from 2-3 countries. The collection of contributions in this first Black and Brown in Bioethics topic collection is described as being an effort to resist the exclusionary and expansionist aspects of global health expertise, while also exhorting to do better at saving lives with better ethics.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144973750","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}