Month: December 2020
My Medical Humanities Journey
In the post introducing the blog (WORMHOLE), I mention that I’ve thought of the sciences and arts as two separate entities, with me having one foot in the sciences and the other in the arts and hopping in an “all or nothing” way between those two. I think the best illustration for this dichotomy happened […]
Internal (Eternal) Medicine: Part 4 of 4
November 7, 1998 Saturday Finally, the last two weeks of Internal Medicine! The last two weeks in which I am supposed to study for the oral exams (you open your mouth and doctors look in for cavities ;-D) The “orals” are held on the 3rd to the last day of the 10-week Internal Med rotation. […]
Unique Issues in Performing Artists: Part 2
In the previous blog post, I wrote about unique issues surrounding performing artists and the reluctance to seek medical help. Part 2 will tackle issues that are specific to each discipline: dance, music, and vocal arts. Dancers are a special crowd. They have good kinesthetic sense – the sense of movement and knowing where their […]
Internal (Eternal) Medicine: Part 3 of 4
November 7, 1998 Saturday This is part 3 of Eternal Medicine, the emergency room. It is nothing like the clean, orderly emergency room on TV’s E.R., but it can be as fast-paced. After 4 weeks in the wards, our block moved on to the AMMU for 2 weeks. AMMU stands for Adult Major Medical Unit, […]
Internal (Eternal) Medicine: Part 2 of 4
November 7, 1998 Saturday This is part 2 of the 10-week epic called Eternal (Internal) Medicine. Please send me a note if you did not receive part 1, as I (stupidly) forget to note down which subscribers received part 1. I forgot to tell you in the last issue that during the 4-week stay in […]
Nurses are Superheroes
A lot of the published fiction and nonfiction prose in the medical humanities deals with physicians. Think Atul Gawande’s books and Robin Cook’s novels (Elaine and I did a term paper for that in our college Humanities 103 class looong ago). Same thing with TV shows – the likes of Dr. Kildare, Doogie Howser, M.D. […]
Sport Athlete or Performing Artist? Shared Issues in Sports and the Arts
I’ve mentioned previously that some of my Rehabilitation Medicine (Physiatry) colleagues have additional training in Sports Medicine. While it is logical that there’s overlap between the two (for example: figure skaters can fall under both fields), there are similarities and differences between the athlete and the artist. The Athletes and the Arts initiative was borne […]
Internal (Eternal) Medicine: Part 1 of 4
November 2, 1998 Monday HELLO TO [my captive audience] ALL [old and new] SUBSCRIBERS OF MY ONLINE E-MAIL JOURNAL OF INTERNSHIP! Think you missed an issue? Wrong. The journal had been out of circulation for about 2 1/2 months due to computer inaccessibility…. In other words, I haven’t been home since August (or was it […]
Unique Issues in Performing Artists: Part 1
In a previous blog post, I wrote about the health issues shared by sport athletes and performing artists. Hat tip to the Athletes and the Arts initiative for promoting these health issues. Despite all the similarities, the worlds in which athletes and artists move in are not the same at all. Their mindsets, training and […]
Who Practices Performing Arts Medicine?
Performing Arts Medicine (PAM) was my gateway to Rehabilitation Medicine (Physiatry). I wanted to know how to best address the musculoskeletal issues of performing artists, and found PAM sometime in medical school. Rehabilitation Medicine (Physiatry) does not have a monopoly on PAM, but as a specialty it fits PAM very well. We physiatrists focus on […]
