What’s it like to have ADHD?
David Ellis reflects on ADHD and the language – and judgements – around it. ‘But you said for me to write a couple of lines’, I protest as the teacher ushers me out of
Contagious! Visiting an Exhibition on Epidemic Diseases
What do objects from a bygone age tell us about epidemics today? Since opening in June, the exhibition Contagious! reflects on the history of pandemics, including patients’ painful experiences, coping and containment strategies, and examples of ground-breaking medical research. Ruben Verwaal reports on his recent visit.
‘Creating Romantic Obsession’: Book Review
Sierra Moreno reviews Kathleen Béres Rogers’ Creating Romantic Obsession: Scorpions in the Mind (Palgrave Macmillan: 2019) In Francisco Goya’s 1799 etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, a slumped figure is assailed by a cloud
Becoming an Image
Being a patient today increasingly means being an image. Liz Orton’s new artist’s book, Every Body is an Archive, takes the medical image as a site of critical enquiry to explore questions of ownership, language and power within the clinical encounter. Polyphony editor Fiona Johnstone met with Liz Orton to talk about the book, the centrality of image-making to medical practice, and how right now is a radical moment for the clinical gaze.
‘Educating Doctors’ Senses Through the Medical Humanities’: Book Review
Marie Allitt reviews Alan Bleakley’s Educating Doctors’ Senses Through the Medical Humanities: “How do I look?” (Routledge: 2020). Building on many years as professor of medical humanities in medical education, Alan Bleakley’s Educating Doctors’ Senses Through
Healthy Homes: Building Becontree
Karen Rushton, Borough Archivist at Valence House Museum London, introduces the Wellcome Trust funded “Building Becontree” project, reflecting on the estate’s history and significance at the time of today’s global pandemic and the relevance
‘Biblical and Theological Visions of Resilience’: Book Review
Lena Maria Lorenz reviews Nathan H. White & Christopher C.H. Cook’s Biblical and Theological Visions of Resilience: Pastoral and clinical insights (Routledge: 2020). The editors of this innovative volume of fifteen essays justly belief that
The Good Neighbours: Invisible Health Conditions during COVID-19
Laura Donald reflects on invisible health conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. I live in a Glasgow tenement building whose inhabitants pride themselves on their neighbourliness. Often I mute the residents’ WhatsApp group, sometimes for
Elsa of Arendelle: Depigmentation, Deafhood, and Genetic Difference
As part of her ongoing research, Dr Sara Louise Wheeler places Frozen’s protagonist Elsa in context of historical and contemporary depictions of those living with genetic conditions which cause depigmentation and deafness. Historically, hegemonic
Review of Moments of Rupture: The importance of affect in medical education and surgical training
How can trainee health professionals learn from the ‘messy reality of actual clinical practice’? Wendy Lowe reviews a new book exploring what learning is, or should be, in medical education. Moments of Rupture combines