Category: Medical Humanities
Medicine and the Arts
Medical Humanities Talk – Faculty Development
Monday morning (May 8, 2023) started off with Conversations that Matter – part of the St. Lukes Medical Center College of Medicine’s faculty development program. We played the video of my talk from the Association of Philippine Medical Colleges conference in 2022, and had a live open forum for questions and answers. In this way, […]
34. Pig Portraits
September 7, 2022 Pig portraits by Lisa, specially delivered by tita Suzette. Muchas, muchas gracias! Dave and Doreen, oil on linen. Also: 7 of 20 done (35%)! Just passed the ⅓ mark for radiation. [The last photo shows me, Lisa, and the pigs when she visited in January 2023]
17. Thank Goodness for Zoom Conventions and Cooperative Hair
June 9, 2022 I survived today’s virtual convention, including the live panel discussion. It was a well-received session overall. Doreen was present for emotional support. I had to remind her that she should not block the camera. Thank goodness it was a recorded presentation from 6 weeks ago (see the difference in hair), not sure […]
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 […]
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 […]
Inclusivity and disability in the news this week
I saw several pieces in the electronic media this week that highlight the growing efforts to include persons with disability in everyday life. The European Space Agency put out a call for astronauts with physical disabilities – a push for parastronauts to be included in the entering class of 2021. In its own words, the […]
Penguin Bloom, the Movie
Confession: I first did not want to watch this movie because I felt it would be too much like work, because its protagonist has a traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). But curiosity got the better of me. I also knew there was some healing (psychosocial, not physical) involved, so that would make it some form […]
From Polio Survivor to Adaptive Sports Athlete
Check out Tony’s Wheels, a new bilingual (English and Filipino/Tagalog) children’s book. I love this! Because: #1 it’s a book about a polio survivor getting around in the world and into adaptive sports, and #2 my Tita (Aunt) Mila Bongco-Phillipzig wrote it and I’m proud of her. From the book webpage: Mila Bongco-Philipzig | AuthorMila […]
Medical Humanities at the Philippine General Hospital, in the time of COVID-19
In April, 2020 a call went out for photos and written pieces chronicling the pandemic experience at the University of the Philippines and Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) – the plan was to collect these for the PGH Human Spirit Project. The pandemic isn’t over yet, but here are the fruits of that labor: a 3-volume […]
King Lear and the Not So Happy Ending
Greg Doran, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, thinks the Bubonic plague helped shape William Shakespeare’ writing. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/dec/13/a-happy-ending-for-king-lear-trauma-of-plague-caused-shakespeare-to-change-plays-finale We studied King Lear sometime in college. Yes I found it depressing. Interesting that the source play (that Shakespeare based his King Lear on) had a happy ending, but he was so traumatized by all the […]
