text: Wolfgang Lederer Innsbruck, Austria Photo by Chen Mizrach on Unsplash. Together with the gift of life, I have received its finiteness, its perishability. As death is inescapable, when might I allow my life to end? Certainly, my life expectancy has to be longer than average, and I demand good physical and mental health right […]
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  Book review: Understanding the NHS
  June 14, 2022
  Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Book cover of Understanding the NHS by Andy Stein, 2022. The National Health Service in the United Kingdom was founded in 1948 by Aneurin Bevan, a Welsh Labour Party politician and health minister in Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government. Bevan was a coal miner before entering Parliament in […]
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  Furniture of bones
  December 22, 2021
  D. Brendan Johnson Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States Selvportrett i helvete [Self Portrait in Hell]. Edvard Munch. 1903. Munchmuseet. Via Wikimedia. “Would you like the new patient?” My senior resident offered me the next admission, a patient being stabilized in the emergency department after a suicide attempt. As a fresh medical student in the beginning […]
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  The Joker and his Frankenstein
  October 7, 2021
  Snaiha Iyer Narayan India The Joker & His Frankenstein, 14th September 2021. By Snaiha Iyer Narayan. In recent decades, cinematic portrayals of medical conditions have garnered variant review. The Joker has been an iconic film in popular culture in part because of its portrayal of mental illness and depiction of societal stereotypes. An often disregarded […]
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  Queen Juana: the mad or the betrayed?
  August 24, 2021
  Juliana Menegakis London, United Kingdom Juana I de Castilla, ca. 1500 Master of Affligem. Museo Nacional de Escultura. Via Wikimedia. Juana of Castile is known by her epithet “the Mad.” But was she truly insane? Infanta Juana of Castile and Aragon was born in 1479 to Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of […]
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  Art appreciation under the radar
  July 15, 2021
  Lawrence Climo Lincoln, Massachusetts, United States Photo by Matheus Viana from Pexels I was on my way to an art gallery in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to view the art of a painter who once lived there, Normal Rockwell. On the way, I stopped first at an exhibit at a local psychiatric hospital where I had […]
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  Men, women, and idioms of distress
  June 29, 2021
  Mary Seeman Toronto, Ontario, Canada What pedisyon may feel like. Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels. In all cultures there is a place for illness that is not easily explained by individual pathology. It is usually attributed to larger societal unrest, with some individuals responding to that unrest with somatic or psychological symptoms. When […]
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  Book Review of Intensive Care: A GP, A Community and COVID-19
  March 31, 2021
  Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Intensive Care: A GP, A Community and COVID-19. Gavin Francis is a family doctor in Scotland who has written several critically-acclaimed books. In his latest work, he chronicles his experience of the COVID-19 pandemic as a family doctor (general practitioner or GP) and the effects of the virus […]
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  Wellbeing
  January 25, 2021
  Sanjana Sundara Raj Sreenath El Paso, Texas, United States This painting portrays the physical and psychological impact of the pandemic. It captures not only the physical isolation due to social distancing but also feelings of loneliness. The cognitive and mental health after-effects can persist long after recovering from Covid-19. With increased feelings of anxiety, […]
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  Intersection of mental illness, the supernatural, and gender in Pakistan
  January 20, 2021
  Sualeha Siddiq Shekhani Karachi, Pakistan Man with the spirit of his deceased second wife. William Hope. c. 1920 Credit: National Science and Media Museum. No known copyright restrictions. Maria sits across from me in a pristine clinic room in a private hospital in Pakistan. At first reluctant to speak about her husband’s illness, her […]
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