43 results
Neutron Star Extreme Matter Observatory: A kilohertz-band gravitational-wave detector in the global network
- Part of
- K. Ackley, V. B. Adya, P. Agrawal, P. Altin, G. Ashton, M. Bailes, E. Baltinas, A. Barbuio, D. Beniwal, C. Blair, D. Blair, G. N. Bolingbroke, V. Bossilkov, S. Shachar Boublil, D. D. Brown, B. J. Burridge, J. Calderon Bustillo, J. Cameron, H. Tuong Cao, J. B. Carlin, S. Chang, P. Charlton, C. Chatterjee, D. Chattopadhyay, X. Chen, J. Chi, J. Chow, Q. Chu, A. Ciobanu, T. Clarke, P. Clearwater, J. Cooke, D. Coward, H. Crisp, R. J. Dattatri, A. T. Deller, D. A. Dobie, L. Dunn, P. J. Easter, J. Eichholz, R. Evans, C. Flynn, G. Foran, P. Forsyth, Y. Gai, S. Galaudage, D. K. Galloway, B. Gendre, B. Goncharov, S. Goode, D. Gozzard, B. Grace, A. W. Graham, A. Heger, F. Hernandez Vivanco, R. Hirai, N. A. Holland, Z. J. Holmes, E. Howard, E. Howell, G. Howitt, M. T. Hübner, J. Hurley, C. Ingram, V. Jaberian Hamedan, K. Jenner, L. Ju, D. P. Kapasi, T. Kaur, N. Kijbunchoo, M. Kovalam, R. Kumar Choudhary, P. D. Lasky, M. Y. M. Lau, J. Leung, J. Liu, K. Loh, A. Mailvagan, I. Mandel, J. J. McCann, D. E. McClelland, K. McKenzie, D. McManus, T. McRae, A. Melatos, P. Meyers, H. Middleton, M. T. Miles, M. Millhouse, Y. Lun Mong, B. Mueller, J. Munch, J. Musiov, S. Muusse, R. S. Nathan, Y. Naveh, C. Neijssel, B. Neil, S. W. S. Ng, V. Oloworaran, D. J. Ottaway, M. Page, J. Pan, M. Pathak, E. Payne, J. Powell, J. Pritchard, E. Puckridge, A. Raidani, V. Rallabhandi, D. Reardon, J. A. Riley, L. Roberts, I. M. Romero-Shaw, T. J. Roocke, G. Rowell, N. Sahu, N. Sarin, L. Sarre, H. Sattari, M. Schiworski, S. M. Scott, R. Sengar, D. Shaddock, R. Shannon, J. SHI, P. Sibley, B. J. J. Slagmolen, T. Slaven-Blair, R. J. E. Smith, J. Spollard, L. Steed, L. Strang, H. Sun, A. Sunderland, S. Suvorova, C. Talbot, E. Thrane, D. Töyrä, P. Trahanas, A. Vajpeyi, J. V. van Heijningen, A. F. Vargas, P. J. Veitch, A. Vigna-Gomez, A. Wade, K. Walker, Z. Wang, R. L. Ward, K. Ward, S. Webb, L. Wen, K. Wette, R. Wilcox, J. Winterflood, C. Wolf, B. Wu, M. Jet Yap, Z. You, H. Yu, J. Zhang, J. Zhang, C. Zhao, X. Zhu
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- Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia / Volume 37 / 2020
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 05 November 2020, e047
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Gravitational waves from coalescing neutron stars encode information about nuclear matter at extreme densities, inaccessible by laboratory experiments. The late inspiral is influenced by the presence of tides, which depend on the neutron star equation of state. Neutron star mergers are expected to often produce rapidly rotating remnant neutron stars that emit gravitational waves. These will provide clues to the extremely hot post-merger environment. This signature of nuclear matter in gravitational waves contains most information in the 2–4 kHz frequency band, which is outside of the most sensitive band of current detectors. We present the design concept and science case for a Neutron Star Extreme Matter Observatory (NEMO): a gravitational-wave interferometer optimised to study nuclear physics with merging neutron stars. The concept uses high-circulating laser power, quantum squeezing, and a detector topology specifically designed to achieve the high-frequency sensitivity necessary to probe nuclear matter using gravitational waves. Above 1 kHz, the proposed strain sensitivity is comparable to full third-generation detectors at a fraction of the cost. Such sensitivity changes expected event rates for detection of post-merger remnants from approximately one per few decades with two A+ detectors to a few per year and potentially allow for the first gravitational-wave observations of supernovae, isolated neutron stars, and other exotica.
P.042 Safety and efficacy of stereoelectroencephalography in pediatric epilepsy surgery
- CA Elliott, K Narvacan, J Kassiri, S Carline, B Wheatley, D Sinclair
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- Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences / Volume 46 / Issue s1 / June 2019
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 05 June 2019, p. S25
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Background: There are few published reports on the safety and efficacy of stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) in the presurgical evaluation of pediatric drug-resistant epilepsy. Our objective was to describe institutional experience with pediatric SEEG in terms of (1) insertional complications, (2) identification of the epileptogenic zone and (3) seizure outcome following SEEG-tailored resections. Methods: Retrospective review of 29 patients pediatric drug resistant epilepsy patients who underwent presurgical SEEG between 2005 – 2018. Results: 29 pediatric SEEG patients (15 male; 12.4 ± 4.6 years old) were included in this study with mean follow-up of 6.0 ± 4.1 years. SEEG-related complications occurred in 1/29 (3%)—neurogenic pulmonary edema. A total of 190 multi-contact electrodes (mean of 7.0 ± 2.5per patient) were implanted across 30 insertions which captured 437 electrographic seizures (mean 17.5 ± 27.6 per patient). The most common rationale for SEEG was normal MRI with surface EEG that failed to identify the EZ (16/29; 55%). SEEG-tailored resections were performed in 24/29 (83%). Engel I outcome was achieved following resections in 19/24 cases (79%) with 5.9 ± 4.0 years of post-operative follow-up. Conclusions: Stereoelectroencephalography in presurgical evaluation of pediatric drug-resistant epilepsy is a safe and effective way to identify the epileptogenic zone permitting SEEG-tailored resection.
Chromospheric diagnosis with forward scattering polarization
- E. S. Carlin
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- Journal:
- Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union / Volume 10 / Issue S305 / December 2014
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 24 July 2015, pp. 146-153
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- December 2014
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Is it physically feasible to perform the chromospheric diagnosis using spatial maps of scattering polarization at the solar disk center? To investigate it we synthesized polarization maps (in 8542 Å) resulting from MHD solar models and NLTE radiative transfer calculations that consider Hanle effect and vertical macroscopic motions. After explaining the physical context of forward scattering and presenting our results, we arrive at the definition of Hanle polarity inversion lines. We show how such features can give support for a clearer chromospheric diagnosis in which the magnetic and dynamic effects in the scattering polarization could be disentangled.
Notes
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 379-428
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11 - Doctor-Writers
- from Part II - Literature, the Arts, and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 183-196
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Summary
I want a doctor with a sensibility.
– Anatole BroyardAbstract
This chapter explores some of the many doctor-writers who have reflected on the practice of medicine and the qualities of a good doctor. Beginning with a discussion of the merged scientific and humanistic sensibilities of these writers, it examines the work of five prominent figures: William Carlos Williams, Richard Selzer, Kate Scannell, Danielle Ofri, and Pauline Chen. Then, with a focus on their pleas that we attend to the patient’s illness and life world as well as to the patient’s ailing body, it considers how their work helps us to think about what it means to practice purposefully.
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) is best remembered today as a revolutionary modernist who wrote poetry in the American idiom – poetry that reflected the distinctive way Americans speak the English language. He was also a prolific writer of prose – novels and essays – and a playwright. But Williams’s day job was as a doctor who practiced general medicine and pediatrics for four decades and composed stories emanating from his practice experience. Williams’s “doctor-stories” reveal a physician seeing patients during office hours in his home clinic and making house calls in and around Rutherford, New Jersey, especially among the often immigrant poor. The physician is genuinely interested in his patients (“fascinated” would not be too strong a word), intrigued by their lives, touched by their humanity, and struck by their authenticity. The narrator speaks in the story, “Ancient Gentility”: “In those days I was about the only doctor they would have on Guinea Hill. Nowadays some of the kids I delivered then may be practicing medicine in the neighborhood. But in those days I had them all. I got to love those people, they were all right. Italian peasants from the region just south of Naples, most of them, living in small jerry-built houses – doing whatever they could find to do for a living and getting by, somehow.”
Part I - History and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 19-25
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Summary
The history of medicine is the oldest discipline of medical humanities. Actually, medical history, whose origins lie in the late nineteenth century, long predates and helps us to understand medical humanities, which is barely forty years old. At the turn of the twentieth century, distinguished American male physicians and educators first turned to history as a means of humanizing medicine. Although there are now serious doubts, debates, and visions, and the field has grown more diverse, this mission in medical education has remained remarkably stable. With the recent rise, however, of medical humanities and bioethics, and the professionalization of the field of the history of medicine, the influence of history in medical education has been overshadowed by ethics, literature, the social sciences, and to a growing extent, religion/religious studies and media studies. One counterbalancing trend has been public policy historians such as Susan Reverby (1946–), David (1937–) and Sheila Rothman (1939–), David Rosner (1947–), Gerald Markowitz (1944–), and Howard Markel who have been active in developing programs in history, ethics, and public health, housed outside of medical schools. Another is the testimony of physicians whose lives and work have been shaped by their knowledge of history. History is an exciting and essential way of understanding medicine and health care, which are never static but rather constantly changing and evolving.
22 - Religion and Bioethics
- from Part IV - Religion and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 340-357
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Summary
Why is it that the intellectual engine of bioethics seems to be driven by legal or medical theorists rather than theologians?
– Laurie ZolothBioethics began in religion, but religion has faded from bioethics.
– Albert JonsenAbstract
This chapter explores the brief history of religion and bioethics. Beginning with a discussion of the religious roots of the field, it examines the key contributions of early figures such as James Gustafson, Paul Ramsey, Joseph Fletcher, Karen Lebacqz, William May, H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr., and Daniel Callahan. Then, with a focus on contemporary debates surrounding religion and bioethics, it notes some recent developments in the field, including the “conservative turn” and the emergence of non-Christian perspectives.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the role that religious thinkers have played, and, to a lesser extent, still do play, in bioethics. This chapter is historical and thematic and has three parts. In part one, we provide a brief overview of the history of religion and bioethics. In part two, we explore some of the writings and themes of key thinkers in this history. And in part three, we outline some current debates and discussion.
16 - Moral Philosophy and Bioethics
- from Part III - Philosophy and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 251-262
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Summary
The real work of bioethics, more often than not, is in listening, reading, and watching carefully in order to judge what is important and what is not.
– Carl ElliottAbstract
This chapter explores the emergence of bioethics as a distinctive form of moral philosophy. Beginning with a discussion of the public’s mounting unease with the applications and implications of “big” science and “rescue” medicine, it examines the birth of bioethics in the 1960s and the subsequent contributions of key thinkers such as K. Danner Clouser, Daniel Callahan, Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress, Robert M. Veatch, and H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. Then, with a focus on contemporary exchanges between recent ethical approaches, it considers how we might address some of the moral challenges facing medicine in the twenty-first century.
INTRODUCTION
As we have seen in previous chapters (4, 6, and 14) concerns about the ethics of clinical and research medicine began to surface in the 1960s. Revelations of abuse led to a call for public mechanisms to govern medical research involving human subjects. Surgical and pharmacological advances in the transplantation of vital organs generated new uncertainties about the definition and determination of death. And public unease mounted regarding the use of new technologies that often seemed to prolong life at the expense of dignity in dying. Medicine was becoming morally unsettled.
9 - Medicine and Media
- from Part II - Literature, the Arts, and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 153-167
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Although neither the medicine nor the bioethics of these TV dramas is real, both are often so compellingly portrayed as to provide us with extraordinary opportunities to use them to encourage more in depth discussion, and to make bioethics itself more accessible and democratic.
– George AnnasAbstract
This chapter explores how doctors have been depicted on American television. Beginning with a discussion of existing scholarly literature, it examines the origins of the doctor show formula on programs such as Medic and Ben Casey; the shift toward shows, like M*A*S*H, that focused on the lives and problems of physicians rather than patients; the new emphasis on the doctor’s family life on programs like The Cosby Show; the growing sense of disillusionment presented on shows such as ER; and the representation of the doctor as antihero on shows like House, M.D. Then, with a focus on The Mindy Project, it considers some recent developments in the doctor show formula.
INTRODUCTION
Police shows and doctor shows have been a staple of American television for well over fifty years. It is striking that while police shows tend to focus on the taking of life (i.e., murder) doctor shows tend to focus on procedures for saving life (e.g., surgery). The ongoing popularity of both genres seems to indicate that the American public never seems to grow weary of watching the extremities of life.
18 - Just Health Care
- from Part III - Philosophy and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 277-288
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Summary
A decent medical-care system that helps all the people cannot be built without the language of equity and care.
– Rashi FeinAbstract
This chapter explores the issue of equity in the organization and distribution of health care. Beginning with a discussion of various presidential attempts to establish greater equity, it examines what Paul Starr calls “the American health care trap” as well as the reasons why America, alone among postindustrial democracies, has failed to enact a universal health insurance program. Then, with a focus on recent work in the field, it considers how we might find our moral and political compass amidst the complex network of actors and institutions that determine how we organize and distribute health care.
INTRODUCTION
In Chapters 11 and 12, we discussed the virtue of care in doctor-patient relationships. But what of equity, or fairness, in the organization and provision of health care? This chapter critically examines the requirements of justice in the allocation and distribution of health care services.
7 - Narratives of Illness
- from Part II - Literature, the Arts, and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 125-137
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Summary
All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.
– Isak DinesenAbstract
This chapter explores how we narrate our experiences of illness. Beginning with a discussion of how narrative shapes our experience of brute fact into intelligibility and meaningfulness, it examines four narratives of illness: Oliver Sacks’s A Leg to Stand On, William Styron’s Darkness Visible, Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face, and Aaron Alterra’s The Caregiver. Then, with a focus on the relationship between narrative interpretation and our encounters with illness, it considers how reading narratives of illness attentively, expectantly, and reflectively can heighten our powers of perception, deepen our self-knowledge, and thicken our understanding of what it’s like to suffer through an illness or cope with an injury.
INTRODUCTION
This chapter discusses a type of illness narrative known as “pathography,” a subgenre of autobiography and biography. And it offers “readings” of four such narratives, each with a different focus – loss of bodily integrity, mental collapse, disi guring cancer, and incurable degenerative disease – and all authored by professional writers.
8 - Aging in Film
- from Part II - Literature, the Arts, and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 138-152
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Summary
Age has long been Hollywood’s nightmare.
– Sally ChiversAbstract
This chapter explores portraits of aging and old age in film. Beginning with a discussion of early Hollywood’s cult of youth, it examines the slow emergence of aging characters in the 1950s and 60s; the themes of intergeneration and regeneration that frequently drove the plots of films depicting old age in the 70s and 80s; and the variable and complex images of aging presented in more recent age-related films. Then, with a focus on issues such as late-life sexuality and the trope of the “aging cowboy,” it considers some of the ways that contemporary film has challenged negative stereotypes and images of old age.
INTRODUCTION
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, western societies entered an unprecedented era of mass longevity and aging. Most people could expect to live into their seventies in reasonably good health, while those eighty-five and older became the fastest-growing age group in the population. Yet as we have seen in Chapter 5, “The Health of Populations,” the dark side of this triumph was an epidemiological transition in which chronic disease replaced infectious disease as the primary cause of mortality. Mass longevity came with a price tag: many older people now experience periods of disability, frailty, dementia, pain, and may suffer a prolonged death in intensive care units. In addition, western (and especially American) culture remains plagued by ageism – a pattern of prejudice and discrimination toward older people and old age, analogous to sexism and racism. Ageism and hostility toward the aging process are clearly reflected in the contemporary medical and popular ideal of “anti-aging” – the notion that one can grow old without aging. Despite our cultural illiteracy about how to grow old, the modernization of aging has generated a host of existentialand moral questions that are largely suppressed in popular culture: Is there an intrinsic purpose to growing old? Is there anything really important to be done after children are raised, jobs left, careers complete? What are the avenues of spiritual growth in later life? What are the roles and responsibilities of older people? Who should care for old people who are frail and sick? Is wisdom an illusion or an accomplishment of those who pursue it? Is there such a thing as a “good old age?”
23 - Suffering and Hope
- from Part IV - Religion and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 358-372
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Summary
Pandora, the first mortal woman, received from Zeus a box that she was forbidden to open. The box contained all human blessings and all human curses. Temptation overcame restraint, and Pandora opened it. In a moment, all the curses were released into the world, and all the blessings escaped and were lost – except one: hope. Without hope, mortals could not endure.
– Greek MythologyProvidence does not mean a divine planning by which everything is predetermined . . . .Rather, Providence means that there is a creative and saving possibility implied in every situation.
– Paul TillichAbstract
This chapter explores suffering and hope in the context of medicine. Beginning with a discussion of Eric Cassell’s claim that physicians should attend to pain and suffering, it examines possible religious answers to patients’ existential struggles to find meaning in their illnesses; the practical theodicies that health care professionals often construct or hold onto to help them deal with suffering; and the nature and role of hope in patients’ lives and clinical practice. Then, with a focus on the inevitability of suffering, it suggests that we should do our best to create the conditions for hope.
17 - Medicine and Power
- from Part III - Philosophy and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 263-276
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Summary
Power is not something that is acquired, seized, or shared, something that one holds on to or allows to slip away; power is exercised from innumerable points, in the interplay of nonegalitarian and mobile relations.
– Michel FoucaultAbstract
This chapter explores the topic of medicine and power in the context of race, gender, and class. Beginning with a discussion of quantitative methods of addressing medicine and power, it then examines Michel Foucault’s description of how knowledge/power objectifies human beings by means of dividing practices, scientific classification, and subjectification; John Money’s description of how gender identity is “completely malleable”; Mary Daly’s description of how American gynecology is part of a larger tradition of the social control of women’s bodies and minds; and various issues raised by the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Then, with a focus on contemporary research in emergency rooms, it considers some of the challenges facing us in the twenty-first century.
5 - The Health of Populations
- from Part I - History and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 89-103
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Summary
[T]he Fury of the Contagion was such at some particular Times, and People sicken’d so fast, and died so soon, that it was impossible and indeed to no purpose to go about to enquire who was sick and who was well.
– Daniel DefoeWeep not for me; think rather of the pestilence and the deaths of so many others.
– Marcus AureliusAbstract
This chapter explores the history of public health. Beginning with a discussion of the health of populations in prehistory and antiquity, it examines how religious institutions of the medieval period took on the obligation to care for the poor, the needy, and the sick; how public health officials responded to plague outbreaks in the early modern period; how infectious disease devastated New World populations; how a democratic, person-centered view, which established health as a right of citizenship, arose in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and how various states have dealt with the health of populations since then. Then, with a focus on some contemporary issues such as climate change, it considers some of the challenges facing public health efforts in the twenty-first century.
Contents
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp v-vi
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Frontmatter
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp i-iv
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Introducing MedicalHumanities
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- 31 October 2014, pp 1-18
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Summary
Of the physician’s character, the chief quality is humanity, the sensibility of heart which makes us feel for the distress of our fellow-creatures.
– John GregoryIntroduction
“I had undergone three heart surgeries in two years,” Dr. Steven Hsi writes, “numerous tests, dozens of visits to doctors’ offices, extended stays in hospitals and long recuperative periods at home.” He continues:
I was 43 years old, a successful physician, married to a wonderful woman and blessed with two fine sons – all of it assaulted by a rare heart disease of such catastrophic power that it did more than threaten my life. It nearly destroyed my family.
Dr. Hsi and his family coped well enough, he writes, but no one, especially none of his doctors, asked him what he felt to be the most important questions: “What has this disease done to your life? What has it done to your family? What has it done to your work? What has it done to your spirit?” “Regardless of the considerable compassion and caring of many of them,” Dr. Hsi concludes, “no one asked the questions that needed to be asked. I have come to believe this oversight was the single most grievous mistake my doctors made.” Existential questions – questions about the meaning of life and death – are essential to medicine. This book is designed to help you engage the most important questions.
Part II - Literature, the Arts, and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 121-124
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Summary
The term “the arts” derives its meaning from the context in which it is used. “Fine arts” refers to activities and products of the imagination such as music, painting, and sculpture, which appeal to a sense of beauty. Branches of learning such as history, languages, literature, philosophy, and religion are traditionally known in academic parlance as liberal arts. “Arts and sciences” distinguishes the humanities, also known as human sciences, from natural sciences and social sciences. Similarly, in an older idiom, “letters and sciences” draws the same distinction but gives literary learning pride of place in the humanities. And there are “arts of,” as in martial arts and healing arts. This section explores some contemporary connections between humanistic study and the healing arts, giving special attention to relationships between visual and verbal meaning.
Art both mirrors and challenges our settled perceptions. John Berger (1926–) writes, “Seeing comes before words ... [and] the way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe. We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice. As a result of this act, what we see is brought within our reach.”
3 - Educating Doctors
- from Part I - History and Medicine
- Thomas R. Cole, Nathan S. Carlin, Ronald A. Carson, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
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- Medical Humanities
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- 31 October 2014, pp 57-73
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Summary
To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.
- William OslerAbstract
This chapter explores the history of medical education in the west. Beginning with a discussion of how medical knowledge was established and transmitted in antiquity, it examines how many important medical texts were translated into Arabic in the Middle Ages; how scholars rediscovered and rethought these texts in the Renaissance; how medical education evolved during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to include new academic subjects such as physiology and chemistry; and how, by the middle of the twentieth century, medical education came to be associated with academic health centers. Then, with a focus on a 2010 Carnegie Foundation Report, it considers some of the challenges facing medical education in the twenty-first century.
INTRODUCTION
As all teachers and students know, education is a difficult business. Medical education is especially difficult because people’s lives are at stake and because the acquisition of scientific and clinical knowledge is such a demanding process. The history of medical education is characterized by several pedagogical tensions. Do students learn best from texts and classroom lectures or from clinical apprenticeships and experience? Should education be focused on the disease or the person? On the mastery of universal scientific knowledge or the care of unique individuals? These polarities are not mutually exclusive, of course, but finding the right balance among them is an elusive and ever-changing task. The history of medical education is also characterized more recently by a conflict between educating a privileged male minority and opening medical education to women, immigrants, and racial and ethnic minorities.