Laughter and Dreaming of Wins in Recovery
“Hannah, roll a six!,” Mahad, Alliance Wellness recovery program resident, pleaded as the game of Ludo intensified. Ludo, a strategic and competitive board game, was popular among Somali…
Tag: medical anthropology
Green Lady Cambodia: A Small Initiative for A Big Change on Menstrual Health and Hygiene Education
Authors’ Note: The following essay uses the words “women” and “girls” in order to mirror the phrasing and experiences of cited literature as well as the responses of…
A Call to Improve the Dire State of Menstrual Education in the UK
LECKHNA PARAS CHAJED Gillian Keegan Secretary of State for Education House of Commons London SW1A 0AA Dear Gillian Keegan, RE: A call to improve the quality of menstrual…
10-year drug strategy: More harm than hope?
ELI SHLEIFER Matthew Rycroft CBE, Permanent Secretary Home Office, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF April 2024 Dear Sir Matthew Rycroft KCMG CBE,  …
“I’m not tired and lazy, I have ME”. An open letter on addressing the needs of people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis.
STEFFI SHARMA Wes Streeting MP Secretary of State for Health and Social Care 39 Victoria Street London SW1H 0EU Dear Secretary of Health and Social Care, I write…
Why border enforcement and cutting funds are not the solutions to undocumented migration to Italy
LIVIA SAPERE To: Giorgia Meloni Palazzo Chigi Piazza Colonna, 370 00187 Roma (RM), Italy Dear Giorgia Meloni, I am writing to address the decision of your government to…
The post-code lottery of the right to life
TEONÉ BURRIDGE Sir Chris Bryant House of Commons London SW1A 0AA Dear Sir Chris Bryant, I am writing to you, the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on…
A LETTER TO JAMES CLEVERLY
DORA FREITAS April 2024 James Cleverly House of CommonsLondonSW1A 0AA Dear Home Secretary, James Cleverly, On the 4th of December 2023, you announced during a parliamentary debate…
Medicine Disoriented
Once a week, I get to play doctor. Setting aside the endless anki cards and slide decks familiar to all medical students in their preclinical training, I turn…
Evidence and Experience at the Climate-Health Nexus
By Annikki Herranen-Tabibi, Harvard Medical School, United States On a sweltering afternoon in the congested Expo City of Dubai, I entered the COP28 Visitor Center to collect my…
Waves of Well-being: Surfing at the Shaka Surf Club in Kodi Bengre, India
Surfing’s roots are in long-standing cultures in the Pacific Islands, South America, and West Africa. After wave-riding was banned by European Missionaries who deemed it leisurely and “sav…
Bed-Time Storytelling
Bedtime stories are stories narrated by adults to children before they fall asleep. As an essential parenting skill, the storytelling scene is infused with love and trust. These…
Care Without Pathology: How Trans- Health Activists Are Changing Medicine – review
In Care Without Pathology: How Trans- Health Activists Are Changing Medicine, Christoph Hanssmann explores the evolution of trans therapeutics and health activism through ethnographic fieldwork conduc…
Funeral for an Embryo
On a freezing February morning, I pulled my rental car into the small parking lot behind a sprawling Minnesota church. I had flown halfway across the country to…
How to Imagine the Unknown: Choosing an Arm Prosthesis
When amputation happens, it is an un-ignorable event. After the surgery, the person learns how to be an amputee, they learn to conceptualize their altered body. This work…
Staring Contest
It’s 3 in the morning. I’m sitting at the end of the hallway of the boomerang-shaped intensive care unit (ICU) where I work, looking into the darkness beyond…
The Wild Pantry
Plants and Their Stories Finally, it’s time. As a team we have arrived in Cambodia—a geographer and an anthropologist embarking on a journey that we have joyfully planned…
Arc of Interference: Medical Anthropology for Worlds on Edge – review
In Arc of Interference: Medical Anthropology for Worlds on Edge, João Biehl and Vincanne Adams assemble reflections on the role of anthropology in understanding healthcare in today’s world of…
Why positive thinking won’t end loneliness
NOEMI CASSIN House of Lords London SW1A 0PW Dear Lady Barran, I am writing to you to discuss your latest Campaign to End Loneliness report, titled “The Psychology…
Neglect of vaginal health in US health education
CAROLINE MOORE Dear Dr. Miguel Cardona, RE: Neglect of vaginal health in US health education I am writing as someone who was educated in the US through high…
Menus without calorie information should be available in all restaurants in the UK
NINA DYNE Neil O’Brien MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Primary Care and Public Health), House of Commons,LondonSW1A 0AA Menus without calorie information should b…
An open letter on virtual wards
HELEN ROBERTSON Deliver To: Amanda Pritchard,NHS Chief Executive Officer10 South Colonnade Canary Wharf, London, E14 4PU Dear Amanda Pritchard, In 2022, your team announced the expansion …
Seeing Women Rough Sleepers
FILIS LIU To: C/O Xerox Unit 4, 191 Pasadena Close, Hayes, UB3 3NQ. Dear Mayor Sadiq Khan, I am writing to draw your attention to the alarming rise…
Rethinking Indigenous Suicide in Canada and Giving Land Back
HUGH KNAPP Canadian Minister of Healthjean-yves.duclos@parl.gc.ca Re: Suicide in our indigenous communities Dear Mr. Jean-Yves Duclos, &nbs…