| 1. |
- Irwin, Rachel, et al.
(författare)
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Research forum : maging a post-antimicrobial future
- 2022
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Ingår i: Medical Humanities. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 1468-215X .- 1473-4265. ; 48:3, s. 357-358
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, is a global challenge, with the WHO declaring it one of the ‘top 10 global public health threats facing humanity’. Specifically, the WHO, governments and researchers have highlighted the ‘misuse and overuse of antimicrobials’, and the lack of clean water, sanitation and preventative measures, specifically noting concern over resistant strains of gonorrhoea, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus influenza, HIV, malaria and tuberculosis (WHO 2021). AMR leads to increased morbidity, mortality and costs from infections, not least as a patient may cycle through several antimicrobials before an effective one is prescribed. Additionally, many second-line and third-line (and beyond) antimicrobials are not readily available in low-resource settings. Moreover, antimicrobials are regularly prescribed as a prophylaxis, for instance, to prevent infection in routine surgeries (WHO 2021).
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| 2. |
- Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, Hanna, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Meeting up in broken word/times: communication, temporality and pace in neuromixed writing
- 2023
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Ingår i: Medical Humanities. - : BMJ. - 1468-215X .- 1473-4265. ; 49:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The article investigates letter writing as a way to explore neurodiverse collectives, neuromixed communication and neurodiverse research collaboration. From the perspective of neurodiversity studies and translation practice/studies, the article negotiates new perspectives of inherited images of neurological selves and others, such as the non-autistic as the 'typical' in contrast to the 'atypical' autistic person. Experimenting with autistic time, allowing different sensory modalities and different approaches to time, detail and narrative, the article challenges deficit approaches to autism. Through a letter writing practice the possibilities and challenges of subjectivity, cultural translation and writing as method are examined. The article suggests that 'counter narratives' are important sources of knowledge as they reclaim personhood from dehumanising perspectives. By performing neuromixed conversation and dialogue with theoretical concepts, and pen paling as play as a fruitful form for responsible cross-neurotype translation, the article illuminates challenges and opportunities in neurodiverse collective writing.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Bodin, Maja
(författare)
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'It wasn't what I was suited for' : regretful mothers negotiating their reproductive decision and mother role
- 2023
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Ingår i: Medical Humanities. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 1468-215X .- 1473-4265.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study contributes to our understanding of why women without a longing to have children and who, in theory, have the possibility of refraining from parenthood still become mothers. The article is based on in-depth interviews with six Swedish mothers who never longed to have children in the first place. It illustrates howthey make sense of their reproductive decision-making process and their current role as a mother. The analysis shows how reproductive decision-making is highly influenced by cultural perceptions of proper womanhood and the idea that every woman has an innate longingto have children, as well as other people’s wishes and pressure. Although the mothers did their best to align with motherhood expectations, their narratives show that they are still oriented towards non-motherhood on an emotional level. This manifests through their experiences of existential regret about having children. Hence, the mothers’ understandings of their path to motherhood reveal a complex conflict between outer expectations and inner wishes, which destabilises the idea of reproduction as a promise of happiness.
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| 5. |
- Bullington, Jennifer
(författare)
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Body and self : a phenomenological study on the ageing body and identity
- 2006
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Ingår i: Journal of Medical Humanities. - : BMJ. - 1041-3545 .- 1573-3645. ; 32:1, s. 25-31
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of the study was to investigate how older people (60+) experience the ageing body and how these experiences affect aged peoples’ sense of identity. Explorative, open ended, interviews were conducted with 13 respondents between the ages of 63 and 82, recruited from a retired peoples’ organisation, Church organisations, and from the working population. The qualitative data was analysed with a phenomenological method, the so called EPP method, the empirical phenomenological psychological method. The results showed that generally the experience of the ageing body has to do with a changed life world, reactions to this change in terms of body and self, and finding ways to feel at home in this changed situation. Results are presented as three typologies, reflecting the different ways in which the respondents described this general experience: existential awakening, making it good enough, and new possibilities. The results give support to the research that points out the importance of activity for the self esteem of the elderly. According to this study, however, the meaning of “activity” can vary and can have different sources of motivation. Respondents in only one typology expressed frustration over limitations of the ageing body. Respondents exhibited entirely different ways of relating to the fact that death was approaching, which raises questions about how the elderly experience this impending horizon. Finally, the gender differences in this small study were quite clear: all the male respondents belonged to the typology “New possibilities”, raising questions about gender aspects concerning the meaning of freedom, appearance, activity, and self esteem.
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| 6. |
- Guntram, Lisa, 1981-
(författare)
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May I have your uterus? : The contribution of considering complexities preceding live uterus transplantation.
- 2021
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Ingår i: Medical Humanities. - : BMJ PUBLISHING GROUP. - 1468-215X .- 1473-4265. ; 47:7, s. 425-437
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Uterus transplantation combined with in vitro fertilisation (IVF) (henceforth called UTx-IVF) as a treatment for infertility caused by an absence or malfunction of the uterus is advancing. About 50 transplantations have been conducted worldwide and at least 14 children have been born-9 of them by women taking part in a Swedish research project on UTx-IVF. The Swedish research protocol initially stated that the potential recipient must 'have her own donor' who is preferably related to the recipient. But what does it mean to ask someone for a uterus? What challenges does this question instigate? And what norms may it enact? In this article, I explore how 10 women-who have considered, and sometimes pursued, UTx-IVF-describe their experiences of searching for a donor. I aim to show how an analysis of such accounts can help us unpack some of the specific relational and gendered dimensions of UTx-IVF and by doing so enrich discussions of risks, benefits, care and support in UTx-IVF. Drawing on research in social sciences and medical humanities that has demonstrated how assisted reproductive technologies and organ donation can provoke social and familial conundrums, with respect to such topics as embodiment and identity, I present three patterns that describe different dimensions of the interviewees' quest for a uterus donor. I discuss the negotiations that took place, how expectations unfolded and how entanglements were managed as the interviewees considered asking someone for a donation. Such an examination, I suggest, contributes to make care and support more attuned to the experiences and entanglements that UTx-IVF entails for those pursuing it. This will become increasingly important if (or when) UTx-IVF becomes part of general healthcare. To conclude, I problematise responsibilities and relational challenges in medical innovation, and in this way provide insights into how the ethical debate over UTx-IVF can broaden its scope.
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| 7. |
- Gustafsson, Anna W, et al.
(författare)
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Coping by metaphors : The versatile function of metaphors in blogs about living with advanced cancer
- 2020
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Ingår i: Medical Humanities. - London : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 1468-215X .- 1473-4265. ; 46:3, s. 267-277
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Living with a life-limiting cancer illness can entail a turmoil of feelings such as constant fear of loss, suffering and dying. Because patients live longer with life-limiting illness, there is a need for enhanced understanding of how people make sense of and cope with the complicated aspects that this life situation brings on. In this article, we explore how bloggers with advanced cancer use metaphors as ways of making sense of their experiences. Our study is theoretically grounded in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, where metaphors are seen as a powerful phenomenon that both reflects and affects our thinking. The data consist of a corpus of blogs written in Swedish by individuals with advanced cancer, and the findings from our linguistic metaphor analysis are consistently interpreted against the backdrop of literature on coping. Our study thus highlights the intersection of linguistic metaphor analysis and psychological theories of coping by illustrating the many and complex functions metaphors can have as part of sense-making processes. Our hermeneutic approach enables us to show some differences among the three most pervasive metaphor domains in our material, battle, journey and imprisonment: the journey and imprisonment domains are more flexible than the battle domain in terms of the different kinds of coping strategies that are actualised by the bloggers’ use of metaphors. One particular finding from our analysis is the way in which the bloggers make use of metaphors to compartmentalise experiences and emotions. Our contention is that careful attention to the metaphors used by patients can improve communication in healthcare and enhance understanding of the complex role language use plays in coping processes more generally. By highlighting the relation between metaphor use and coping, our analysis also provides a way to discuss coping strategies based on the patient’s own use of language.
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| 8. |
- Hallqvist, Johan, 1984-
(författare)
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The making of a professional digital caregiver : personalisation and friendliness as practices of humanisation
- 2022
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Ingår i: Medical Humanities. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 1468-215X .- 1473-4265. ; 48:3, s. 347-356
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this paper is to explore how a digital caregiver, developed within a Swedish interdisciplinary research project, is humanised through health-enhancing practices of personalisation and friendliness. The digital caregiver is developed for being used in older patients’ homes to enhance their health. The paper explores how the participants (researchers and user study participants) of the research project navigate through the humanisation of technology in relation to practices of personalisation and friendliness. The participants were involved in a balancing act between making the digital caregiver person-like and friend-like enough to ensure the health of the patient. Simultaneously, trying to make the patients feel like as if they were interacting with someone rather than something – while at the same time not making the digital caregiver seem like a real person or a real friend. This illustrates the participants’ discursive negotiations of the degree of humanisation the digital caregiver needs in order to promote the health of the patient. A discursive conflict was identified between a patient discourse of self-determination versus a healthcare professional discourse of authority and medical responsibility: whether the digital caregiver should follow the patient’s health-related preferences or follow the healthcare professionals’ health rules. Hence, a possible conflict between the patient and the digital caregiver might arise due to different understandings of friendliness and health; between friendliness (humanisation) as a health-enhancing practice governed by the patient or by the healthcare professionals (healthcare professionalism).
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| 9. |
- Hansson, Kristofer, et al.
(författare)
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Imagining a post-antibiotic era : a cultural analysis of crisis and antibiotic resistance
- 2022
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Ingår i: Medical Humanities. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 1468-215X .- 1473-4265. ; 48:3, s. 381-382
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The study presented in this article is about the role played by imagination when national and international organisations convey the idea of a dystopian crisis involved in the real transition to a postantibiotic era. The present is an era that can be defined as a time when no new antibiotics are discovered or developed, and existing antibiotics simultaneously become less effective since bacteria develop resistance against the active substances. Today, antibiotic resistance is an international fact; thousands of people die every year in Europe and the USA as a result of bacteria that have become resistant. Then, imagination can conjure up a different and a much more dystopian future. This article stems from a public debate concerning the global increase of antibiotic resistance; and will examine how the concept of fantasy and imagination is central in picturing such a future crisis in society. The article’s empirical basis mainly consists of reports from global and Swedish organisations, dating from the 1990s and onwards. These fantasies show that our society has a strong urge to always try to understand and explain present time and to identify how ‘our’ era relates to the past as well as the future. The concept of crisis plays an important role in these fantasies, it is key to use it when thinking about change. The analysis builds on texts and illustrations from global organisations like the WHO and also national authorities in Sweden that aim to convey the science behind the challenge. The aim is to develop a theoretical and empirical understanding, from the perspective of cultural analysis, of how fantasy and crisis are linked when the future is conceived.
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| 10. |
- Holmberg, Martin, 1947-
(författare)
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The ghost of pandemics past : revisiting two centuries of influenza in Sweden
- 2017
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Ingår i: Medical Humanities. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 1468-215X .- 1473-4265. ; 43:3, s. 141-147
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous influenza pandemics are usually invoked in pandemic preparedness planning without a thorough analysis of the events surrounding them, what has been called the ‘configuration’ of epidemics. Historic pandemics are instead used to contrast them to the novelty of the coming imagined plague or as fear of a ghost-like repetition of the past. This view of pandemics is guided by a biomedical framework that is ahistorical and reductionist. The meaning of ‘pandemic’ influenza is in fact highly ambiguous in its partitioning of pandemic and seasonal influenza. The past 200 years of influenza epidemics in Sweden are examined with a special focus on key social structures—households, schools, transportations and the military. These are shown to have influenced the progression of influenza pandemics. Prevailing beliefs around influenza pandemics have also profoundly influenced intervention strategies. Measuring long-term trends in pandemic severity is problematic because pandemics are non-linear events where the conditions surrounding them constantly change. However, in a linearised view, the Spanish flu can be seen to represent a historical turning point and the H1N1 2009 pandemic not as an outlier, but following a 100-year trend of decreasing severity. Integrating seasonal and pandemic influenza, and adopting an ecosocial stance can deepen our understanding and bring the ghost-like pandemic past to life.
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