Humanities resources to support healthcare professionals and patients
Wit (2001) – “And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die” Commentary Where do literature and medicine intersect? Mike Nichols 2001 movie Wit, based on the prizewinning play by Margaret Edson, tests that, as a literature scholar tries to make sense of her impending death. Several writers speak of finding meaning in the Read More …
I scowl towards his voice. He says the map marks how far vision goes. If I could creep up close I’d learn the journey. His technique restricts me to a chair so he can track how far I travel down the chart alone before I pause. I grope in the third line – my limit Read More …
When I consider how to represent my sixth of working light, my words collide with your fear of dark. Your visions hide the blindness born with me. You mourned sight sent before you into death. Let me invent a new account–half- light to place beside your grief, the beauty of blind life denied. I’d rather Read More …
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent When I consider how my light is spent, E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide, Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, least Read More …
A doctor’s visit, Anton Chekhov (1898) ‘I have palpitations of the heart’ she said, ‘It was so awful all night….I almost died of fright! Do give me something.’ ‘I will, I will; don’t worry yourself.’ Korolyov examined her and shrugged his shoulders. ‘The heart is all right’, he said; ‘it’s all going on satisfactorily; everything Read More …
27th May 1892 Three incidents have made me laugh to-day: the laugh ironic, the laugh Byronic, and the laugh sardonic! Firstly, on visiting an elderly patient who has suffered acutely for many years from a form of tic douloureux, I found her overjoyed at the wonderfully beneficial effects of some pills which I had prescribed. Read More …
Hollie McNish. So no more will I sit on these cold toilet lids No matter how embarrassed I feel as she sips Because in this country of billboards, covered in tits I think we should try to get used to this Commentary A rattling, lilting, lyrical rant at the absurdity of society’s contradictory attitudes to Read More …
I had overestimated the size of the square in the middle of town by quite a lot. But it was still big, more than big enough for a hospital. Two operating theatres, one of them in a truck! an emergency room and maybe eighty beds? We’d have to take care of the cars of Read More …
“Know him,” the Neurosurgeon said, as we Huddled expectantly, our white coats gleaming. Armed with newly honed skills in taking a history We enquired about headache and vomiting. “No, really know him,” the Consultant insisted, although we did not understand. “Listen without assuming, discover who he is and never suppose what his passions are or Read More …
I this day began to feel unaccountable alarm of unexpected evil: a little heat in the members of my body sacred to Cupid, very like a symptom of that distemper with which Venus, when cross, takes it into her head to plague her votaries. But then I have no risks. I have been with no Read More …