Hot Topics: Medical Humanities
Blog Posts (3)
February 7, 2018
What's the Story with Addiction?
by Katie Grogan, DMH, MA
Taylor Wilson was a 21-year-old woman, described by her parents as a bookworm and aspiring librarian.…
January 12, 2018
New Graphic Medicine at AJOB
by Eric S. Swirsky, JD, MA
It is my privilege to introduce the health humanities community to the work of biomedical visualization students at the University of Illinois at Chicago, whose work will be featured as cover art in forthcoming issues of AJOB. …
November 27, 2017
New Raymond Chandler Story Eloquently Criticizes Patients as Dollars
by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
This year has been a challenging one in the debate over what a U.S. health care system should look like.…
Published Articles (3)
AJOB Primary Research: Volume 8 Issue 1 - Mar 2018
A paradigm for understanding trust and mistrust in medical research: The Community VOICES study M. Smirnoff, I. Wilets, D. F. Ragin, R. Adams, J. Holohan, R. Rhodes, G. Winkel, E. M. Ricci, C. Clesca & L. D. Richardson
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 17 Issue 9 - Sep 2017
Now is the Time for a Postracial Medicine: Biomedical Research, the National Institutes of Health, and the Perpetuation of Scientific Racism Javier Perez-Rodriguez & Alejandro de la Fuente
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 16 Issue 10 - Oct 2016
Healing Without Waging War: Beyond Military Metaphors in Medicine and HIV Cure Research Jing-Bao Nie, Adam Gilbertson, Malcolm de Roubaix, Ciara Staunton, Anton van Niekerk, Joseph D. Tucker & Stuart Rennie
News (12)
March 28, 2018 9:00 am
How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’ (The New York Times)
In 1942, the anthropologist Ashley Montagu published “Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race,” an influential book that argued that race is a social concept with no genetic basis. A classic example often cited is the inconsistent definition of “black.” In the United States, historically, a person is “black” if he has any sub-Saharan African ancestry; in Brazil, a person is not “black” if he is known to have any European ancestry. If “black” refers to different people in different contexts, how can there be any genetic basis to it?
March 27, 2018 9:00 am
Former FDA commissioners say right-to-try bills could endanger ‘vulnerable patients’ (Washington Post)
Four former heads of the Food and Drug Administration have issued a joint statement opposing “right to try” legislation that is designed to permit desperately sick patients to get experimental treatments without the approval of the agency.
January 10, 2018 9:00 am
Does gender matter? (Nature)
The suggestion that women are not advancing in science because of innate inability is being taken seriously by some high-profile academics.
September 29, 2017 9:00 am
How to teach children about gender equality (CNN)
Parents can help teach their kids about gender equality by never using gender as an excuse for behavior, experts say.
September 19, 2017 9:00 am
Pregnant women should not be categorised as a ‘vulnerable population’ in biomedical research studies: ending a vicious cycle of ‘vulnerability’ (Journal Of Medical Ethics)
A new study published in Journal of Medical Ethics by van der Zande et al1 further highlights why classifying pregnant women as a ‘vulnerable population’ in the context of research is deeply problematic. Because the designation of ‘vulnerable’ is otherwise applied to populations whose decision-making capacity about research participation is somehow compromised—such as children and adults of limited cognitive ability—many of us have been arguing for some time that using this designation for pregnant women is inappropriate and disrespectful.
July 25, 2017 9:00 am
US defense agencies grapple with gene drives (Nature)
The JASONs, a group of elite scientists that advises the US government on national security, has weighed in on issues ranging from cyber security to renewing America’s nuclear arsenal. But at a meeting in June, the secretive group took stock of a new threat: gene drives, a genetic-engineering technology that can swiftly spread modifications through entire populations and could help vanquish malaria-spreading mosquitoes.
June 14, 2017 9:00 am
Heaven over hospital: Dying girl, age 5, makes a choice (CNN)
June 9, 2017 9:00 am
How Should Physicians Respond When the Best Treatment for an Individual Patient Conflicts with Practice Guidelines about the Use of a Limited Resource? (AMA Journal of Ethics)
Physicians might not be able to find a best solution or process for resolving more difficult ethical dilemmas, such as how they should best distribute limited resources. They could, however, pursue a path that most respects and benefits their patients and themselves.
May 18, 2017 9:00 am
From Silence into Language: Questioning the Power of Physician Illness Narratives (AMA Journal of Ethics)
Physicians’ narratives of their own experiences of illness can be a kind of empathic bridge across the divide between a professional healer and a sick patient. This essay considers ways in which physicians’ narratives of their own and family members’ experiences of cancer shape encounters with patients and patients’ experiences of illness.
February 15, 2017 9:00 am
This stereotype is killing black children (Washington Post)
USA Swimming, the nation’s organizing body for the sport, has some 337,000 members — of whom only 1.3 percent are black. Today, nearly 60 years after the abolishment of Jim Crow laws that kept African Americans from pools and safe swimming places, many children still never get the chance to swim.