Medical Humanities Commons^™

Capallaries Of Care: Pato Hebert In Conversation With Alex Juhasz, Alexandra Juhasz, Pato Hebert

Publications and Research

Discussion about art show, Lingering: No Silver Linings, about longhaul COVID with artists and organizers, Pato Hebert and Alex Juhasz.

Understanding The Role Of Race In American Medicine, Fariel C. A. Lamountain

Honors Theses

Long running inequity in health care and outcomes in the United States stem from failure to acknowledge the underlying role of the Transatlantic slave trade as it manifests in all facets of American society and commerce. This paper focuses specifically on the American medical system and its foundations to understand the precursors to generational trends in lack of access to healthcare and poor health for Black communities. This paper uses a three-pronged approach to understand the racist cycle of inequity, highlighting the history and origins of racism in American medicine, personal accounts and statistical evidence of inequity, and community and …

Science And Sadness: Critiques On How We Handle Alzheimer’S Disease And Dementia, Katherine Martinez

Honors Theses

In our society, an individual’s worth is tied to the state of their cognitive function which affects the discourse about neurodegenerative illnesses, causing it to mostly fall under two branches: “The Dread” and “Science as the Holy Grail”. “The Dread” addresses how Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and other dementias are typically perceived as devastating illnesses to be feared. “Science as the Holy Grail” represents the hope and faith that is invested into potential technoscientific developments without the guarantee of any consequential results. Limiting the narrative to these two categories negatively impacts the quality of life (QOL) of AD patients, caregivers, and …

The Multifront Battle Waged Against Female Autonomy: A Comparative Study Of Ancient Medical And Literary Texts, Leah K. Montello

Honors Theses

Male authors have long waged a multifront campaign against female independence. In this thesis, I focus on two specific fronts: literary and medical texts of the Classical Greek period. This thesis intends to explore the varying strategies in a selection of works, employed to reinforce prescribed gender norms. I approach this with a feminist lens to critique attempts made by elite educated Greek men to define what a woman ought to be like. I do not, however, explore every single tactic a medical and literary writer has applied to uphold patriarchal norms. My two body chapters revolve respectively around two …

Queer Survival Amidst Hiv/Aids, Covid-19 And Homelessness, Julia Young

Pitzer Senior Theses

The treatment and survival of a society's marginalized peoples reveal the true impacts of a pandemic. An analysis of homeless queer youth during the HIV/AIDS and SARS-CoV-2 crises lays bare the systemic failure of the United States government to provide equitable healthcare.

I compare the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics in queer homeless youth to demonstrate the dangers of disease moralization via a sociocultural analyses of disease stigma and responsibility politics. Utilizing syndemic theory I draw on the synergistic relationship between disease and illness to describe the unique challenges queer homeless youth face. A syndemic framework is applied to address common …

What Pandemics Teach Us About Servant Leadership, Kelly L. Bezio

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

This article seeks to understand what pandemics teach us about servant leadership. It analyzes two texts, which reflect on people of color’s experiences becoming servant leaders during such public health crises: A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, during the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793 (1794) and The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice (2021). These texts balance detailed depictions of what this leadership praxis looks like with trenchant critiques of how service, racism, and leadership tend to intersect in the United States. As texts that demonstrate the …

Art Education In Medical Education: Benefits And Challenges, Sara K. Brown

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

Humanity is synergistic with art and medicine. Likewise, art education can be impactful throughout medical education. Art as a tool to develop the next generation of healthcare differs from the clinical goals of creative art therapies. Over the prior decade, many medical schools now provide curricular offerings in the arts and humanities. Less is known about the application in postgraduate medical settings. The focus of this thesis is to review the pairing of artist-educators with postgraduate medical training programs.

One such program is ArtsCAFE (Arts Connect Around Food and Enrichment), an intercollegiate project fusing experienced arts educators with medical educators …

Mevisit: Value-Based Approach To Primary Care Delivery By Mtelemedicine Utilization Applied Through Lean Principles, Neil Coyer Thornbury

All ETDs from UAB

Background: Significant issues of inconsistent patient services in the U.S. health system impact health outcomes and create high cost. Limitations of immobility, inefficiency, and accessibility sacrifice patient treatment, delay recovery, and escalate health risks from the lack of primary care physicians. The primary purpose of this study was to examine meVisit, a connective mobile technology, as a feasible primary care solution to address escalating health costs by reducing emergency room (ER) visits and inpatient admissions (IA). Methods: The feasibility study applied descriptive and inferential statistics to secondary data (n=4,024) and compared the two independent patient groups from the same large …

Embedding A Mixed Methods Process Evaluation In A Web-Based Diet And Exercise Program For Older Cancer Survivors, Jami Lee Anderson

All ETDs from UAB

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe critical steps in designing a usercentered mixed methods process evaluation and implement the process evaluation within an existing program. Three objectives of this dissertation include: 1) develop a conceptual framework for conducting user-centered process evaluations of web-based diet and exercise programs for middle-aged and older cancer survivors; 2) inform the design of a user-centered process evaluation by leveraging insights from “think aloud” interviews collected during the beta-testing phase of the AMPLIFY program (a webbased diet and exercise program designed to support healthy lifestyle needs of older cancer survivors); and 3) present results …

Assessing The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Metastatic Lung Cancer Time To Treatment Initiation, Health Care Resource Utilization, And Costs In The United States, Teresa M. Zyczynski

All ETDs from UAB

The COVID-19 pandemic has derailed normal operations in the health care delivery systems in the United States (US) and globally, providing prioritized care to patients seeking acute management of the novel coronavirus and its complications. Simultaneously, cancer screening tests have decreased, resulting in decreased rates of cancer diagnoses and referrals to oncologists. The purpose of this study was to assess time to treatment initiation (TTI) with systemic cancer therapy in patients with newly diagnosed metastatic lung cancer, metastatic lung cancer-related and total healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and costs during the pandemic/post-pandemic period compared with the pre-pandemic period. The retrospective claims …

Pain That Only She Must Bear: On The Invisibility Of Women In Judicial Abortion Rhetoric, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The graphic and bodily facts of a legal question of rights are relevant to the courts, particularly in questions that directly implicate physical bodies and pain, such as right to die cases, or what level of search may be allowable and when. However, in the case of abortion, or more specifically the bodily ramifications of pregnancy and childbirth, this detail is conspicuously absent. This article, relying on a content analysis of over 220 legal opinions on abortion rights, documents this absence of rhetoric. Particularly in the context of other discussions of pain and physical health risks in these very same …

The Program To Reduce Implicit Bias In Carroll Hospital Center Using The Implicit Association Test, Katherine E. Traynor

Capstone Showcase

Natural brain processes make all individuals susceptible to unconscious bias; however, stressful, fearful, or anger-evoking situations as well as the negative influence of media and social surroundings increase the risk of holding obstructive bias, and there is a greater risk of being negatively impacted by this phenomenon when belonging to a minority population (Rose & Flores, 2020). As a result, high rates of infant mortality (10.2 deaths per 1,000 live births for the Non-Hispanic Black population compared to 4.1 in the White population) and cardiovascular related diseases (190.0 cases per 1,000 in the Non-Hispanic Black population compared to 161.3 in …

Unexpected And Usual Breaks' Impact On Body Composition In College Athletes, Aston Dommel

All ETDs from UAB

Body composition is an important factor that determines athletic performance. At the elite level, margins of victory are narrow, with small changes in performance making the difference between victory and defeat. Changes in body composition affect performance, in both improvements and decrements. Athletes regularly experience breaks from structured activity and resources caused by expected circumstances (school breaks, off-season) and unexpected circumstances (injury, COVID-19). Due to differences in diet, physical activity, and other factors, breaks may cause changes in body composition that can hinder or help the athlete upon return to structured resources. Currently, there is a plethora of cross-sectional research …

Predictors Of Us Hospital Responsiveness To International Patient Inquiries, Suzanne M. Garber

All ETDs from UAB

Medical travel has been growing at a steady rate as global travel has also increased. However, with the advent of COVID-19, all global travel came to a screeching halt, including travel intended for medical purposes across borders. Now that travel is resuming worldwide, American hospital administrators are anxious to fill their beds with more profitable, international patients to make up for revenue losses incurred during the pandemic. Existing literature on the topic of medical tourism focuses on the role of patient initiative, choice, and risk-taking behaviors with little mention of hospital leadership’s ability or desire to construct a management strategy, …

The Effect Of Federally Qualified Health Centers (Fqhcs) Prevalence On Uncompensated Care In Us Hospitals, Kena R. Norris

All ETDs from UAB

Over the past two decades, uncompensated care in U.S. hospitals has grown at a staggering rate and reached $46.4 billion in 2013. It began to decline in 2014, due to the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), but is now on the rise again. Uncompensated care is typically affected by policy and market factors such as legislative changes and an increase in the number of uninsured. While hospitals continue to serve as critical safety net providers, they are often not the only or most appropriate facility to serve the indigent in U.S. communities. Instead, federally qualified …

The Effect Of Integrative Medicine Interventions On Patient Activation Measure, Rochelle F. Richards

All ETDs from UAB

Activated patients believe they have essential roles in achieving and maintaining their health. Patient activation is strongly related to improved clinical outcomes (Hibbard, 2017; Greene, 2013). The study’s primary purpose is to evaluate the use of Integrative Medicine Interventions (IMIs) and their relationship to patient activation levels; and to investigate the association between IMI protocols and patient activation levels on patient reported outcomes (PROs) for those with chronic diseases, specifically chronic fatigue and mental health-related conditions of anxiety and depression, using the principles of Integrative Medicine’s (IM) whole-person approach as the model of care in independent IM practices across the …

The Adoption Of New Cancer Drugs In Non-Academic Cancer Centers, Warren M. Smedley

All ETDs from UAB

Advancements in medical knowledge are producing significant improvements in medical technology, developing breakthrough drug therapies, advancing the practice of medicine, and improving outcomes for cancer patients. However, there are delays in getting new and improved therapies incorporated into routine clinical use, depriving cancer patients of valuable and potentially lifesaving treatments. The purpose of this study was to examine the rate of adoption of new cancer drug discoveries into routine clinical practice in non-academic cancer centers. The process of adoption takes a period of time to embrace new therapies, due in part to a prescriber’s need to gain greater comfort with …

Exploring The Influence Of Family History Before And After Type 2 Diabetes Development Through Statistical Analysis Of Biomarkers And An Educational Intervention, Jessica Johnson Denton

All ETDs from UAB

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing at an alarming rate in both children and adults worldwide. Timely identification of those at risk for type 2 diabetes is essential to reduce morbidity and mortality and to mitigate the toll on families and the healthcare system. Family history is an effective, universal tool that can be used to identify individuals at risk for type 2 diabetes before they acquire additional risk factors. Understanding how family history contributes to biomarkers associated with diabetes in healthy individuals could facilitate the creation of early screening and prevention strategies designed for this specific at-risk …

Effects Of Different Types Of Augmented Feedback On Spatiotemporal Gait Performance And Intrinsic Motivation With Individuals Post Stroke, Saleh M. Alhirsan

All ETDs from UAB

After a stroke, an individual can be left with physical and psychological deficits, including decreased walking speed, reduced step length, and reduced intrinsic motivation. These deficits affect their performance during rehabilitation sessions, limit daily activities such as walking and stepping, and restrict participation in social roles that involve mobility. Current clinical practice guidelines recommend providing augmented feedback using virtual reality (VR) to enhance walking outcomes after six months of stroke onset. This dissertation shows two novel VR applications designed, especially for individuals’ post-stroke, to induce their fast-walking speed and maximum step length performance, and intrinsic motivation. Three performance conditions were …

Palliative Care For The Pandemic ; Zoom New World-Skills I Learned During The Pandemic, Krysten Vance

The Art of Medicine

No abstract provided.