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A newsletter from the Division of Medical Humanities at NYU Langone Health
December 17, 2021

Health Humanities Consortium Toolkit

The Health Humanities Consortium has introduced the Health Humanities Curricular Toolkit, a new resource for health/medical humanities educators working in academic settings who are interested in building a health humanities program at their college or university.

New Issue:
Literature & Medicine

The latest issue of Literature & Medicine is now available. The five Front Matter contributions―on the theme of Masks―are open access for the next 30 days. Other articles address writing including Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, David Foster Wallace’s Oblivion, Sinclair Lewis's Arrowsmith, and more.

Understanding the Role of the Art Museum in Teaching Clinical-Level Medical Students

Heather J. Kagan and colleagues discuss their study exploring how an integrative art museum-based program might benefit 3rd and 4th year medical students, specifically exploring students’ perception of educational structure and their perceived learning outcomes.

The Health Benefits of Autobiographical Writing: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

"Why is writing about life experiences and goals helpful for well-being whereas merely thinking about them is not?" Jussi Valtonen reviews the literature from psychological and biomedical writing interventions, and connects these findings to views from philosophy, cognitive neuropsychology, and narratology.

Highlights from Projects and People in
Humanities and Ethics at NYU Langone Health

New Annotation:
Russell Teagarden on Nervous System by Lina Meruane

“The novel sees illness and death as punishing and shattering, but also life-affirming.”

From the Archive:
Seven Reasons Why Doctors Write

Tony Miksanek, MD, family physician, short-story author, and co-editor of the Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database, shares "seven special reasons (ranked from most important to least important) why doctors write."

Support the Literature, Arts, and Medicine
Database and Magazine

As someone who is interested in Medical Humanities, we hope you will join us in support of the Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database and Magazine. One of the core components of NYU Langone’s Division of Medical Humanities, LitMed is an open access collection of more than 3,000 annotations of works of literature, art, and performing arts that provide insight into the human condition. Please make a gift today. Learn more.
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The Burns Archive Photo of the Week
 

First Clinical Photograph of Polio, Paris, 1871


This is the first published clinical photograph of poliomyelitis, once known as “infantile paralysis.” It was commissioned by renowned neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, MD (1825-1893). He was an advocate of photography in medical publications and was the author/editor of several photographic texts and journals. Parisian ophthalmologist turned medical photographer A. de Montméja took this photograph. In 1870, Charcot, collaborating with Alexis Joffroy, MD (1844-1908), found that the primary lesion of the disease was atrophy of the spinal cord’s anterior horn cells. In reference to this inflammation of grey matter, the condition was given the name “poliomyelitis.” It would not be recognized as a communicable disease until 1905.
      Poliomyelitis has existed since ancient times, yet, it only became epidemic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has been hypothesized that the disease, spread by the fecal-oral route, had been so widespread that infants contracted it while still protected by maternal antibodies; exposure to the virus resulted in lifelong immunity to similar picornaviruses. Most infants manifested only minimal symptoms while gaining lifelong immunity and, subsequently, would pass on this immunity. This early exposure diminished once sanitation improved, and a susceptible population developed within a generation. Small local outbreaks and sporadic cases increased, and the first major epidemic occurred in New York City in 1916. There were over 9,000 cases in this outbreak. While nearly all those afflicted were less than five years old, the disease would become widespread among adults within decades. Poliomyelitis crippled millions with a variety of immobilities, but it was the associated respiratory paralysis that killed thousands. The development of positive and negative pressure respiration devices helped preserve some of those with respiratory paralysis. The mid-century development of injected and oral polio vaccines has helped to eradicate the scourge in most countries. A worldwide effort is underway to eradicate the disease globally.

With thanks to The Burns Archive for providing historic medical photographs and commentary for this weekly feature
 

Quick Links

Calls for Submission & Other Opportunities

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Events & Conferences

JAN
20-
22

Healing Arts Houston: Innovations in Arts and Health

The three-day conference is open to the public and will be a dynamic space for dialogue, learning, and inspiration. Practicing artists, health care professionals, medical educators, and scholars are welcome to attend. Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit is available for physicians.
JAN
26

The Healing Power of Art – How Creativity and Beauty Help Cure the Ill
JAN
27

AAMC Virtual Seminar: "Legacy of Medicine During the Holocaust and its Contemporary Relevance"
FEB
10

Integrating Narrative Medicine into Doctoring Courses: A Focus on Faculty Development

An AAMC/NEGEA SIG Health Humanities Teaching & Learning Webinar
FEB
24

Online Course: How to Effectively Communicate Your Science to Any Audience

Presented by The New York Academy of Sciences
Four-session course: Thursday, February 24, 2022 - Thursday, March 17, 2022
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END
DATE

Postcards from Now

Postcards from Now presents five distinct perspectives from leading international artists of every stripe—choreographers, musicians, visual artists, theater-makers, animators, and more. Commissioned and created at the height of the global lockdown, these five films explore everything from community to communication, patriarchy to power. And in very different ways, they consider the question that we’ve all been asking ourselves and others: What happens next?

There will be no newsletter for the next two weeks.
The next edition will appear on January 7.
Happy Holidays!
~~~~~~~
“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
– T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"
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