Category: Medical Anthropology
The intersection of health and medicine with culture and society
I’ve graduated… now what? Reflections on the two-year (expensive) sabbatical from clinical medicine.
I have been meaning to write this piece for a while but life got in the way. We’ll start with the celebration from December 20, 2021: Somehow the story of my life centers around studying things that are not easily explained, like physiatry and performing arts medicine (in contrast, everyone pretty much knows what a […]
Awkwardly yours: MD, MCHealth&M
Yeah, I’d prefer “MD, MCHM”. It’s much shorter and easier to write. Perhaps this is one reason why people proceed to a PhD… because that supersedes the weird “MCHealth&M” after their names and they don’t have to write that anymore. [half-joking here] For reference, here is the university policy that governs those post-nominals: https://policies.anu.edu.au/ppl/document/ANUP_006804
A Few Thoughts on Photography and Anthropology
From the Philippine Star: “Filipino photojournalist Hannah Reyes Morales has been tapped as one of the photographers for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. Alongside Russia’s Nanna Heitmann, the two will showcase a photography exhibition in Oslo, Norway to highlight this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winners. This year’s laureates, Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, won the prestigious […]
The Gender Divide: Boxing and Headgear
Since I wrote this stuff in a Facebook post, I might as well put it in the blog for posterity. OK… watching boxing at the 2020/2021 Tokyo Olympics has me curious. Why do the women have helmets, and the men don’t? The answer can be found here: https://globalsportmatters.com/health/2019/08/27/aiba-drops-headgear-male-amateur-boxers-female-fighters-wear-them/ TL, DR in selected quotes: the AIBA […]
Critique: Pandemic! A Winter Intensive.
Yesterday was the last day of our Winter Intensive (a whole semester’s worth of material crammed into two weeks) called Beyond Chaos – Critique: PANDEMIC! According to the course description from convenors Prof. Desmond Manderson and Dr. Nick Cheesman, it is “not about the Coronavirus pandemic itself. It is, rather, a response to it. The […]
On Gender and Musical Instruments
I saw this article from The Guardian yesterday on female percussionists, or the lack thereof. I guess it’s a good one to look at for Women’s Month (International Women’s Day was March 8). Out of curiosity – as I do with a lot of questions that suddenly pop into my head – I decided to […]
Reflections on Reading the Literature: A Challenge in Straddling the “Soft” and “Hard” Sciences
Last Monday (February 22, 2021) was the first day of school, for the first semester of the academic year – marking the beginning of the second half of this “two year expensive sabbatical from clinical medicine”. Yes, this one. Structurally, a lot of the subjects I am enrolled in are centered on reading journal articles […]
COVID-19 Vaccines for ALL
If poor countries go unvaccinated, a study says, rich ones will pay. That’s a piece originally from the New York Times, and picked up by multiple news outfits internationally. My thoughts: Control the virus first, and the economy will follow. The economy concerned is not confined to one location. Each location or community is dependent […]
The Short Telomere Double Whammy of COVID-19
Study Finds Shortened Telomeres in Patients With Severe COVID-19 – a recent article discussing a study in the medical journal Aging. Scientists found that people with COVID-19 have shortened telomeres – think of these as the “edges” of your genes that can unravel. Long telomeres mean your body has the capacity to recover and generate. […]
When Algorithms Fail
After approval by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration on December 10, 2020, the Pfizer vaccine made its way to hospitals all over the country. By Monday the 14th, I started seeing colleagues and friends’ social media posts about receiving the vaccine – all very uplifting: excited, ecstatic, emotional about what people called the […]
