QScience Connect - Issue 3- Medical Humanities in the Middle East Conference

On April 9 and 10, 2022, over 79 scholars and 230 attendees met online to share their research on the health and medical humanities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region at the 2nd International Conference on the Medical Humanities in the Middle East (online). This meeting was the second convening of experts since the successful 2018 in-person conference in Doha, Qatar at the Sheraton Hotel. The 2022 conference was jointly Read More

The practice of medicine and the medical sciences have progressed tremendously in the past half century. This talk explores the background and causes of this transformation in medicine as seen through the lens of a surgeon who has practiced medicine for over 50 years. If Medicine is the science and practice of diagnosis, treatment, prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease… If our role as Medical Professionals is to protect, promote, and r Read More

In this keynote address, Professor Paul Crawford introduces the distinctive fields of medical and health humanities, and the way that the arts and humanities can bring new capacities and possibilities for healthcare, health and wellbeing. He will discuss terminology and concepts of the medicalization of the illness experience and the rise of more critical, creative and democratising approaches. He will underline the substantial evidence for h Read More

The discovery of the genetic editing tool, CRISPR-Cas9, has enabled us to edit the human genome by removing or adding sections of the DNA. Scientists hope to eradicate some fatal diseases by using this technology. In short, CRISPR allows us to rewrite the code of life in contrast to discovery of the double helix where we can only read and understand our genome. Both somatic and germline editing can be done by this technology; howev Read More

Fragrances may appear to be a frivolous topic in the modern world, but well into the early modern period they were firmly located at the intersection of medicine and luxury products. The fragrances created by physicians, pharmacists and perfumers in the early Islamic states influenced the olfactory traditions of Europe and Far East Asia. To study the fragrances of medieval China or the middle Byzantium, one needs first to understand how Read More

Engaging in the arts has been demonstrated scientifically to enhance brain function. Creativity can modify a person’s perspective and experience of the world. Changes in cerebrum waves impact changes in the nervous system which can raise serotonin levels. This can affect emotions positively by regulating moods and improving brain function which influences both psychological and physiological wellbeing. Creativity is part of our natur Read More

Based on five months of ethnographic fieldwork at an audiology department in Amman, Jordan, this paper anthropologically examines the provision of hearing technologies to deaf Jordanians as forms and practices of care (Livingston, 2012; McKay, 2018; Stevenson, 2014). Aside from hearing aids, the department also provides cochlear implants—medical devices implanted via surgery that aim to provide people with hearing loss with some e Read More

Although the visual and expressive arts and music have been used in therapeutics and diagnosis for centuries, only in the past two decades has evidenced-based research on the role of arts in healing achieved a critical mass to warrant inclusion of the arts in health systems both inside and outside the clinic. Qualitative and quantitative studies have demonstrated that the arts can impact prevention, management, and treatment Read More

This presentation is a comparative study between two works of autobiographic fiction: Lauren Slater’s Lying (2000), which is about the author's epilepsy diagnosis, and Kuwaiti author Dr. Shahd Alshammari’s Notes on the Flesh (2017), about her diagnosis of, and how she lives with, multiple sclerosis. The two memoirs are studies of identity formation through disability and through the language surrounding disability: the languages both encomp Read More

Paper 1: Introduction to Film and Medical Humanities In recent years, medical humanities have become an important component of medical education. Student-selected modules, and special courses encourage medical students to reflect on the portrayal of illness and suffering as a means of nurturing empathy through watching film. Understanding the lived experience of sickness from a patient and family perspective is a requirement for all Read More

Persianate cultures have been greatly influenced by the “mirror for princes” genre, which offers monarchs advice on how to treat their subjects justly and methods of being an ideal ruler. While scholars have chosen to study this genre from a male-centered perspective, how royal women shaped this genre has remained under-examined by current scholarship. This presentation argues that Crowning Anguish: Memoirs of a Persian Princess Read More

The world is ageing, and this phenomenon is found in almost all countries: low-, middle-, and high-income. Scholarship providing perspectives on ageing deriving from the humanities, arts and cultural gerontology has augmented our understanding of ageing and the life course. Over the past decade one can observe an increased focus in relevant publications relating to ageing and its treatment in the disciplines within the Humanities. At this se Read More

Introduction: Communication skills “CS” have no clear curriculum in most Iraqi medical colleges. This shortcoming of education is reflected in a doctor-centered approach in Iraq. Aim: To identify challenges facing introduction of CS into medical education in Iraq. Methods: Feedback form including the main challenges on introducing CS was distributed online to healthcare professionals who have participated in training of CS courses. Results: Read More

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) is Abu Ali al-Hussein, titled “Sheikh the President”. Avicenna was born in 370 Al-Hijra, (980 AD) in the village of Afshana, near Bukhara in Turkistan, or what is now the Republic of Uzbekistan. At the age of 21, he left Bukhara to spend the rest of his life travelling among various Persian cities. When he died in 1037 AD, he was considered one of the geniuses of philosophy in Islam, and in medicine he was placed in the rank of Read More

With the aim of introducing medical humanities to medical colleges in Iraq, the researcher, who teaches English to medical students at Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad, initiated the idea of a performance of Shakespeare’s most popular play Romeo and Juliet. The main aim was to promote empathy and compassion for medical students after realizing that biomedical sciences have detached them from these feelings. Through activities in t Read More

Visual literacy is both an awareness of visual input and output, encoding and decoding, processing via the eyes and output through visual creation. When informed by the neuroscience of sight and memory, artists and educators can objectively understand their own visual work as well as nurture the visual language of their students (Kasdorf, 2020). This arts-based and practice-based research was part of the author’s thesis during her master’s p Read More

Philosophical interpretation of any scientific discipline is impossible without understanding the methods of cognition inherent in this discipline. The history of medicine is also formed by the understanding of the evolution of the methods of knowledge–clinical and experimental. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to describe the history of medicine as a set of individual events, but philosophy of medicine is understood as a system-forming phe Read More

This paper will discuss the interdisciplinary approach of literature and medicine in light of the recent introduction of Narrative Medicine as a course at Fatima College of Health Sciences, Institute of Applied Technology, UAE. I proposed a Narrative Medicine course at Fatima College of Health Sciences (FCHS) which was accepted, and I currently teach and coordinate this course (which is also being taught at FCHS in Ajman and Al Ain). The co Read More

Background: Not all manuscripts that are accepted and published in scientific journals have retained their status as published articles, and some of them are retracted after publication. There are various reasons for retraction that are usually grouped into a scientific error, such as statistical flaws, and research misconduct such as plagiarism. Nowadays the number of scientific publications are a source of career advancement and respect in Read More

Background: Disability is any restriction or lack of ability to perform an activity (WHO, 2022). The numbers of visually impaired persons globally was 285 million during 2020 and grows by up to 2 million yearly (Jabnoun et al., 2016). They receive the least benefits from health care services (Pratt et al, 2018). Realizing the principles of human rights regarding health care provision (Duffly, 2022), communication is an important human feature Read More