Medical Humanities Commons^™

Hands, Marc Perlman

HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine

“Hands” is inspired by my first encounter with a donor in the cadaver lab during my first year of medical school. This poem highlights the intimate relationship between the medical student and their “first patient” and captures the factors that helped me realize the grandeur of the dissecting experience. Through an awareness of the donor’s hands, I became viscerally aware that the cadaver is a real human being who donated their corporeality to help students learn. The bilateral vulnerability of this experience is a critical milestone in the development of health care providers. Given the recent transition from in-person to …

Celebration Of A Milestone, Komal M. Patel

be Still

A first-year osteopathic medical student, Harsh Patel, has dreamed of starting medical school for as long as he can remember. This is a photo of him at his White Coat ceremony at NSU.

Volume 4, Nova Southeastern University

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No abstract provided.

On Top Of The World, Elias Makhoul

be Still

Elias Makhoul felt like he was on top of the world at his medical school’s white coat ceremony, where he was dressed in his white coat for the first time. His fellow classmates and he officially became recognized for becoming student physicians. More than that, it was also a call for celebration, as each of them has endured hardships and overcame numerous obstacles to be there that day. He took the MCAT three times, applied in two application cycles, and was rejected by over 60 schools. Now, he is studying in his second year at NSU-KPCOM. His white coat ceremony …

Girl On Piano Keys, Bhargavi Madhu

be Still

Celebration is the loudest and greatest form of expressing honor and appreciation. The best way to show love and appreciation for life is through celebration! Girl on the Piano Keys was a painting I gifted to a friend on her birthday. She spent that day at a hospital recovering from an episode of sickle cell anemia. Despite the suffering she was undergoing due to the disease, she would always treat everyday like it was her birthday.

A Celebration Of Progress, Reena Patel

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No abstract provided.

Finding Will In Despair, Dhruti Hirani

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This essay is about the author's emotional journey as she discovered what celebration means to her.

Medicine In Spirituality, Ashesh Soni, Krunal Patel

be Still

Modern day medicine places a major emphasis on appreciating spirituality. A patient’s cultural and religious beliefs are integral when practicing medicine in order to provide the most humanistic care possible to patients. This photograph comes to show the exact opposite, medicine in spirituality. Medicine is an integral part of a medical professional's life and it serves as a major defining characteristic of an individual. Though viewed as objective and subjective, medicine and spirituality are all one.

Every Day Is Worth Celebrating, Sundeep Gidugu

be Still

Sundeep Gidugu enjoys writing about his life experiences and opinions from the mindset of a medical and public health student.

Hope For The Future, Suzanne Riskin

be Still

This was the first Physical Diagnosis I group for the first semester at a new medical school in Clearwater, Florida. The students far exceeded my expectations and my thoughts when they wanted me to pose as their patient was how much better each community will be when they graduate and join the ranks of community healers. They worked hard and always wanted to do it better each day.

-Dr. Riskin

Loss, Suzanne Riskin

be Still

No abstract provided.

Thank You, Krunal Patel

be Still

The mission of medicine is to promote health and save lives. Unfortunately, one’s actions in the medical field may sometimes never be enough to revitalize a patient. From my experience, the magnitude of the loss of a patient's life will never be fully appreciated until witnessed first-hand. This poem serves to illuminate one of the sad truths about medicine and provides inspiration for medical professionals to continue to promote humanity and appreciate the true value of life.

A Celebration, Angel Mauricio Marquez

be Still

What began as an image became a story. Angel Mauricio Marquez pictured hands raised into the air, basking in the moment and enjoying the little victories. Angel wanted to talk about a celebration yet not portray it as an isolated event. He didn't want to show happiness in a bubble, He wanted the truth behind it. He wanted to talk about the things that we fight the hardest for and the moments we often believed we were inches from quitting but then didn't. For Angel, these are the reasons we celebrate.

Celebration Of Pride, Bryce Sebade

be Still

No abstract provided.

Saturn V - Kennedy Space Center, Komal M. Patel, Harsh M. Patel

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Saturn V is the rocket that took the first men to the moon.

Future Engineer, Komal M. Patel, Harsh M. Patel

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Komal Patel is a recent mechanical engineer graduate. The photograph is of Juhi Patel at her graduation.

Strawberry Festival - Plant City, 2019, Komal M. Patel, Harsh M. Patel

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Strawberry Festival

Change, Destin, Fl, Komal M. Patel

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No abstract provided.

Expression Of Clinical Experience, Mara Seat

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No abstract provided.

Post-Celebration Celebration, Katherine Taylor

be Still

"We experienced a lot in the NICU. It was very, very trying. Getting to the point where we could coordinate our bottle squeezes with the swallowing pattern of a newborn with a cleft palate was not something that we expected to have to do as new parents. Many parents were not able (either financially or perhaps mentally) to be there with their babies. That was even harder to see. But the nurses are there, doing the best that they can. And sometimes there are volunteers that come to hold and talk to the babies that are healthy enough. Childbirth is …

Expression Of Clinical Experience, Brittany Derynda

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No abstract provided.

The Medicinal Power Of Small Celebrations, Kristina Fritz

be Still

This personal essay provides a first-hand account of a patient and their family celebrating a change in perspective brought about by experiencing clinical studies/medicine. The author infers that celebrations throughout the medical journey could have a medicinal effect on their own for the patient and their families.

Joy In The Mourning, Ludonir Sebastiany Md, Ms

be Still

No abstract provided.

Consented End, Rabia Mazhar

HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine

This poem is a reflection upon my personal experience of taking care of a young patient with post-partum sepsis and multi-organ failure following the delivery of her second child. She was able to spend one night at home with her family before suddenly decompensating and becoming encephalopathic. In her last moments awake, she relayed to the EMS her wishes of being placed in hospice. The poem narrates her spouse’s internal struggle after respecting the patient’s wishes of withdrawal of care.

Anatomic By Adam Dickinson, Heather Houser

The Goose

Review of Adam Dickinson's Anatomic.

The Healing Properties Of Interactive Art: Creating A Proposal For Art Within A Hospital Environment, Alexandra Chase

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The consumption of art and interaction with it can be beneficial to individuals in many different ways. Play and exploration engage the mind and can have positive effects, no matter how small. Within a medical setting, this type of interactive art can promote healing within patients by engaging their bodies and minds. With these ideas in mind, the Children’s Hospital and Medical Center (CHMC) put out a call for an interactive sculpture piece to be created for their upcoming building expansion. My piece, Garden Lanterns, was then conceptualized in order to fulfill their requirements and embrace the idea of providing …

Finding Common Threads: How Patients, Physicians And Nurses Perceive The Patient Gown, Christy M. Lucas, Cheryl Dellasega

Patient Experience Journal

Evidence-based care is standard practice in medicine, but the patient gown has fallen outside the scope of scholarly research. The current gown renders a patient vulnerable, diminishing patients’ sense of identity, agency, and dignity with its one-size-fits-none design. The impact on providers is similarly neglected. Our objective was to explore how patients and providers derive meaning from patient gowns. A convenience sample at an academic medical center was interviewed utilizing a standardized framework developed by a medical student and two PhD-prepared researchers with experience in qualitative methods. The study was inductive in nature, seeking to understand perceptions of the patient …

A Comparative Study Of Medical And Literary Representations Of Shell Shock, 1914-50, Madison Das

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis explores shell shock--a common but misunderstood disorder seen in soldiers of World War One--through a Medical Humanities framework. Chapter 1 conducts a traditional medical review of scientific articles published on the pathology, symptoms, and treatment of shell shock between 1914-50. Chapter 2 builds upon this by offering a literary reading of Rebecca West's novel, The Return of the Soldier, which was published as the war drew to a close in 1918. The reading of West draws upon the medical research detailed in Chapter 1 to offer new conclusions about Chris's shell shock. The thesis shows how taking an …

Diagnosing The Will To Suffer: Lovesickness In The Medical And Literary Traditions, Jane Shmidt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Throughout Western medical history, unconsummated, unreturned, or otherwise failed love was believed to generate a disorder of the mind and body that manifested in physiological and psychological symptoms. This study traces the medical and literary history of lovesickness from antiquity through the 19^th century, emphasizing significant moments in the development of the medical discourse on love. The project is part of the recent academic focus on the intersection between the humanities and the medical sciences, and it situates literary texts in concurrent medical and philosophical debates on afflictions of the psyche. By contextualizing the fictional works within the scientific …

“That’S Enough Patients For Everyone!”: Local Stakeholders’ Views On Attracting Patients Into Barbados And Guatemala’S Emerging Medical Tourism Sectors, Jeremy Snyder, Valorie A. Crooks, Rory Johnston, Alejandro Cerón, Ronald Labonte

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

Background

Medical tourism has attracted considerable interest within the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. Governments in the region tout the economic potential of treating foreign patients while several new private hospitals primarily target international patients. This analysis explores the perspectives of a range of medical tourism sector stakeholders in two LAC countries, Guatemala and Barbados, which are beginning to develop their medical tourism sectors. These perspectives provide insights into how beliefs about international patients are shaping the expanding regional interest in medical tourism.

Methods

Structured around the comparative case study methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 50 medical tourism …