Medical Humanities

Post-Narrative: An Appeal

by Angela Woods

Narrative Inquiry (2011) Volume 21(2) Pages 399-406

As the narrative turn enters its fourth decade, the task of identifying the limits of narrative and of exploring... more As the narrative turn enters its fourth decade, the task of identifying the limits of narrative and of exploring alternative approaches to interpreting the self and social world is growing in urgency. This article calls for scholars in the medical humanities to undertake this project through critically (re)engaging the work of Galen Strawson, Paul Atkinson and Crispin Sartwell.

The Limits of Narrative: Provocations for the Medical Humanities

by Angela Woods

Medical Humanities Journal (2011) Volume 37 Pages 73-78

This paper aims to (re)ignite debate about the role of narrative in the medical humanities. It begins with a critical... more This paper aims to (re)ignite debate about the role of narrative in the medical humanities. It begins with a critical review of the ways in which narrative has been mobilised by humanities and social science scholars to understand the experience of health and illness. I highlight seven dangers or blind spots in the dominant medical humanities approach to narrative, including the frequently unexamined assumption that all human beings are ‘naturally narrative’. I then explore this assumption further through an analysis of philosopher Galen Strawson's influential article ‘Against Narrativity’. Strawson rejects the descriptive claim that “human beings typically see or live or experience their lives as a narrative” and the normative claim that “a richly Narrative outlook is essential to a well-lived life, to true or full personhood”. His work has been taken up across a range of disciplines, but its implications in the context of health and illness have not yet been sufficiently discussed. This article argues that ‘Against Narrativity’ can and should stimulate robust debate within the medical humanities regarding the limits of narrative, and concludes by discussing a range of possibilities for venturing ‘beyond narrative’.

Context and History in Literature and Science

by Martin Willis

This paper is a report on the final plenary session on Historicism in Literature and Science at the British Society... more This paper is a report on the final plenary session on Historicism in Literature and Science at the British Society for Literature and Science Annual Conference at Oxford in April 2012.

And it's only short - a page and a half!

‘More like cooking than science: Narrating the Inside of the laboratory, Britain 1880-1914’

by Keir Waddington

Disability in Two "Doctor Stories" - accepted for publication in Jones T, D Wear, and LD Friedman, editors. Health and Humanities Reader. (New Brunswick: Rutgers U Press, forthcoming 2012).

by Martha Stoddard Holmes

Reflection in/and Writing: Pedagogy and Practice in Medical Education

by Rebecca Garden

Co-authored w Wear, Delese; Zarconi, Joseph; Garden; Jones, Therese.  Academic Medicine.  POST AUTHOR CORRECTIONS, 23 March 2012
doi: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e31824d22e9

During the past decade, "reflection" and "reflective writing" have become familiar terms and... more During the past decade, "reflection" and "reflective writing" have become familiar terms and practices in medical education. The authors of this article argue that the use of the terms requires more thoughtfulness and precision, particularly because medical educators ask students to do so much reflection and reflective writing. First, the authors discuss John Dewey's thoughts on the elements of reflection. Then the authors turn the discussion to composition studies in an effort to form a more robust conception of reflective writing. In particular, they examine what the discipline of composition studies refers to as the writing process. Next, they offer two approaches to teaching composition: the expressivist orientation and the critical/cultural studies orientation. The authors examine the vigorous debate over how to respond to reflective writing, and, finally, they offer a set of recommendations for incorporating reflection and reflective writing into the medical curriculum.

Arrowsmith goes native: Medicine and empire in fiction and film (2000)

by Lisa Lynch

Chirurgie Fin-de-Siècle: The Surgical Films of Eugène-Louis Doyen, 1897-1906

by Catherine Oakley

(forthcoming) 'Other Cinemas' Screen Studies Conference, University of Glasgow, 29th June-1st July 2012

Between 1896 and 1906 the renowned French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen used the cinematograph to record more than sixty... more Between 1896 and 1906 the renowned French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen used the cinematograph to record more than sixty of his operations. Doyen was one of the first practitioners to identify the educational potential of cinema, yet he was widely disregarded in his lifetime. His obituary in The New York Times made no reference to his work as a cinematographer and he is a largely forgotten figure in both scientific and cinematic spheres today.

This paper will consider the ‘actuality’ films of Doyen’s real-life operations alongside contemporaneous releases by film-makers such as Georges Méliés, Pathé and Gaumont which staged comedic depictions of surgical and medical procedures. I will argue that advances in surgical and cinematic technology posed analogous challenges to the sovereignty and autonomy of the human body and that the surgically-themed film is the site of dynamic encounters between organism and mechanism.

Many of Doyen’s films were circulated widely within international medical and surgical communities, but some also found their way into commercial arenas. The production and distribution of these films constitute a fascinating case-study in the aesthetic and social interrelationship of science and cinema during a crucial period of development in both fields.

Petrarch and the early modern critics of medicine

by andrea carlino

Using narrative reflection to explore attitudes on stigma and professional formation.

by John Steven Cummins

Presentation at CGEA 2012 (March 30-31, 2012).

Background
The University of Missouri School of Medicine identifies the ability to provide effective... more Background
The University of Missouri School of Medicine identifies the ability to provide effective patient-centered care as a key characteristic of its graduates. Such care requires, amongst other attributes, the ability to explore the patient’s feelings, ideas and expectations (Stewart et al 2003); an ability that is of particular relevance to the care of patients with mental illnesses (Baldwin 2005). Narrative exercises, including self reflection and point-of-view writing, have considerable potential for developing this ability (Charon 2001). As part of our “Introduction to Patient Care” curriculum, our students meet with volunteer patients with chronic mental illness. After the patients leave, students have seven minutes to provide a written response to the following prompt: “Imagine that the person you have just met is going to his/her annual physical. Describe the feelings, ideas, fantasies, and expectations that he are she may have about it.” They then share their thoughts with each other in faculty mentored small group discussion. Issues of stereotyping and stigma in mental health are addressed in a contemporaneous didactic session.

Methods
94 anonymous narratives were collected; 7 were omitted from analysis for being uncodable (viz., contained only a DSM-IVTR diagnosis, or were blank). The remaining 87 narratives were then coded and analyzed for thematic content using methods derived from grounded theory and thematic analysis. A second year of data was collected in November 2011 and will be analyzed in the same manner. In addition, during year two a focus group was conducted to explore student perceptions of the experience in general and specifically of using narrative in this way.

Results
Frequently occurring themes included both positive and negative affective content; mistrust of medicine/the physician; and stigma associated with mental illness. Professional formation
themes (those speaking to the understanding of the role of the physician) were also prominent. The narratives suggested a conception of a multivalent physician: one that is a technician, an expert, a relationship builder, an authority figure, and even a shaman.

Conclusions
Our research suggests that narrative reflection can offer useful insight into attitudes held by medical students, both regarding mental illness and professional formation. While exploring
these narratives elucidated a specific group of students' attitudes, it also provided a way to elaborate upon broader themes pertinent to professional formation as a whole in medical
education.

"What the doctor (I) told him”: Using narrative reflection to explore attitudes on stigma and professional formation

by John Steven Cummins

Poster for University of Missouri - Columbia, School of Medicine Research Day 2012
Co-authored with Rachel Brown, MD; Jessica Nittler, MD; Melissa Griggs, PhD

Narrative reflection has been infrequently used as a method of evaluation and teaching for medical trainees. To... more Narrative reflection has been infrequently used as a method of evaluation and teaching for medical trainees. To explore this further, we invited 94 pre-clinical students to listen to a mental illness advocate discuss the experiences they've had in healthcare. The students then were prompted to free-write on what they imagined the person they just met would feel about or expect of an annual physical examination.

These narratives were coded and analyzed for key themes and concepts using grounded theory. Frequently occurring themes included both positive and negative affective content; mistrust of medicine/the physician; and stigma associated with mental illness. Professional formation themes (those speaking to the understanding of the role of the physician) were also prominent: in the end, the narratives suggested a conception of a multivalent physician: one that is a technician, an expert, a relationship builder, an authority figure, and even a shaman.

Our research suggests that narrative reflection can offer useful insight into attitudes held by medical students, both regarding mental illness and professional formation. While exploring these narratives elucidated a specific group of students' attitudes, it also provided a way to elaborate upon broader themes pertinent to professional formation as a whole in medical education.

The Use of Narrative in Building Empathy Towards Patients with Mental Illness.

by John Steven Cummins

Workshop at The Examined Life conference, University of Iowa Carver School of Medicine, April 19-21, 2012. Co-presented with Jessica Nittler, M.D.; Rachel Brown, M.B.B.S.; Melissa Griggs, Ph.D.; Karen Gordy-Panhorst, M.A.

This Workshop combines an experiential component with the report of the outcomes of an educational intervention for... more This Workshop combines an experiential component with the report of the outcomes of an educational intervention for second year medical students. The University of Missouri School of Medicine identifies the ability to provide effective patient centered care as a key characteristic of its graduates. Such care requires, amongst other attributes, the ability to explore the patient’s feelings, ideas and expectations (Stewart et al 2003); an ability that is of particular relevance to the care of patients with mental illnesses (Baldwin 2005). Narrative exercises, including self reflection and point-of-view writing, have considerable potential for developing this ability (Charon 2001). As part of our "Introduction to Patient Care" curriculum, our students meet with volunteer patients with chronic mental illness. After the patients leave, students have seven minutes to provide a written response to the following prompt: "Imagine that the person you have just met is going to his/her annual physical. Describe the feelings, ideas, fantasies, and expectations that he are she may have about it." They then share their thoughts with each other in faculty mentored small group discussion. Issues of stereotyping and stigma in mental health are addressed in a contemporaneous didactic session. We will provide a brief introduction to narrative and point of view writing and then describe our educational intervention. We will lead all (or a subgroup as appropriate) of workshop participants through a similar exercise prompted by recollection of participants’ experience of working with patients with chronic mental illness. This activity will be followed by a report of a qualitative analysis of the themes identified in the student narratives, and of feedback obtained from the student body about the effectiveness of this exercise in learning patient centered care and reducing stereotypes and stigma surrounding mental illness.

Objectives: Participants will be able to understand the impact of point-of-view writing on student perceptions of people with mental illness, and articulate one process that may assist in student development as patient centered physicians.

Galen and the widow. Towards a history of therapeutic masturbation in ancient gynaecology

by Helen King

Abstract here, full text available online: see the link

This paper offers a close reading of the ancient Greek and Roman texts which Rachel Maines argued were evidence for... more This paper offers a close reading of the ancient Greek and Roman texts which Rachel Maines argued were evidence for therapeutic masturbation in the ancient world, and thus precursors for the vibrator. It challenges her claim that ‘Massage to orgasm of female patients was a staple of medical practice among some (but certainly not all) Western physicians from the time of Hippocrates until the 1920s, and mechanizing this task significantly increased the number of patients a doctor could treat in a working day' (Maines 1999: 3). Maines herself suggested this was a 'hypothesis' rather than a 'fact', but in the popular reception of her book this distinction has been almost entirely overlooked. In addition the paper challenges Maines' claims that ‘hysteria’ is a single disease entity with a continuous history; these do not reflect the scholarship of the 1990s which instead insisted on the complexity of the history of this diagnosis (e.g. Mark Micale (1995) Approaching Hysteria: Disease and its interpretations; Helen King (1993) ‘Once upon a text: the Hippocratic origins of hysteria’ in Hysteria Beyond Freud (S. Gilman, H. King, R. Porter, G.S. Rousseau and E. Showalter)

Illness and Inoculation: Narrative Strategies in Frances Burney’s Camilla (1796)

by Rebecca Garden

Garden R. Illness and Inoculation: Narrative Strategies in Frances Burney’s Camilla (1796). In: Laflen A, Block M, eds. Prescribing Gender in Medicine and Narrative. New Castle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing; 2010:64-94.

Expanding clinical empathy: An activist perspective

by Rebecca Garden

Class and Ethnicity in the Global Market for Organs: The Case of Korean Cinema

by Rebecca Garden

Sympathy, Disability, and the Nurse: Female Power in Edith Wharton's The Fruit of the Tree

by Rebecca Garden

The problem of empathy: medicine and the humanities

by Rebecca Garden

Disability and narrative: new directions for medicine and the medical humanities

by Rebecca Garden

Language, Identity, and Belonging: Deaf Cultural and Narrative Perspectives

by Rebecca Garden