“An Extraordinary Sequel: The ‘Russian’ Influenza and Enduring Sequelae in Victorian Culture”
April 5th, 2022
Dr. Lakshmi Krishnan examines the ‘Russian’ influenza pandemic’s enduring cultural and biosocial impact.
Scholarship
“Race, Place, And Structural Racism: A Review Of Health And History In Washington, D.C.”
February 8th, 2022
Dr. Christopher King and his co-authors do a historical review of policies, practices, and events that have sustained systemic racism on the health of the United States. It focuses on Washington, D.C.—a city with a legacy of Black plurality — , while also reflecting on the national landscape, policies and events that socially, economically, and politically disenfranchised Black residents, yielding stark differences in health outcomes among Washington, D.C. populations.
“Physicians in the Digital Age”
January 15th, 2022
Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Dr. Edward Melnick look at what Philip K. Dick’s dystopian novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? can teach us about AI & medicine.
“Balancing Act: Precision Medicine and National Security”
December 30th, 2021
James Giordano and Diane DiEuliis describe current scientific and technological developments in precision medicine. They assess the risks of using these tools and capabilities to exert disruptive influence upon human health, economics, social structure, military capabilities and global dimensions of power.
“Syndemic Theory, Methods, and Data”
December 14th, 2021
Emily Mendenhall, Timothy Newfield and Alexander Tsai introduce an Special Issue of Social Science & Medicine, focused on Rethinking Syndemics through time, space, and method.
“Person Under Investigation: Detecting Malingering and a Diagnostics of Suspicion in Fin-de-Siècle Britain”
October 19th, 2021
Dr. Lakshmi Krishnan examines shifting conceptions of diagnosis & malingering in fin-de-siècle Great Britain by studying two important cases: Physician Cornélius Herz’s ordeal after the collapse of the French Panama Canal Company (1889) & Sherlock Holmes’ “Adventure of the Dying Detective” (1913).
“Syndemics and the History of Disease: Towards a New Engagement”
October 4th, 2021
Timothy Newfield looks at histories of disease and our understanding of current syndemics to think of epidemics through a syndemic lens.
“Ukuphumelela: Flourishing and the Pursuit of a Good Life, and Good Health, in Soweto, South Africa”
September 24th, 2021
Emily Mendenhall and her research team investigate how people residing in Soweto, located in South Africa’s Gauteng province, define, experience, and express what it means to live a flourishing life, both on its own and in relation to health.
“Assessing Health and Human Services Needs to Support an Integrated Health in All Policies Plan for Prince George’s County, Maryland”
August 31st, 2021
This report, co-written by Dr. Christopher King for the RAND Social and Economic Well-Being, describes both the health needs and drivers of health of the Prince George’s County’s residents.
“The Great Gatsby and the Challenge of Unreliable Narrators”
July 17th, 2021
Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Dr. Matthew W. McCarthy tackle the enduring literary debate on the reliability of Nick Carraway, the narrator of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, to answer the question of how do clinicians balance the importance of believing what patients say with the need to be discerning critics?
“A Review of Health and Socioeconomic Disparities among Black Older Adults in the District of Columbia”
June 11th, 2021
This report, co-written by Dr. Christopher King for the AARP District of Columbia, studies the health disparities among Black older adults living in DC.
“Flourishing: Migration and Health in Social Context”
April 7th, 2021
Emily Mendenhall and other researchers draw on case studies from three world regions, to propose concrete steps clinicians and health institutions can take in order to better serve migrant patients.
“Introduction: Migration and Health in Social Context”
April 7th, 2021
Emily Mendenhall and Seth M. Holmes introduce the BMJ Global Health journal’s issue on “Migration and Health in Social Context”, focused on the social, political and economic structural factors that impede or facilitate health among the most vulnerable migrants seeking care from clinical settings globally.
“On Symbols and Scripts: The Politics of the American COVID-19 Response”
March 19th, 2021
Emily Mendenhall and her co-authors argue that, to unravel the American COVID-19 crisis —and to craft effective responses—, a more sophisticated understanding of the political culture of public health crises is needed. According to the researchers, the social processes of meaning-making help explain the evolution of increasingly partisan public health discourse regarding topics like masking and institutional trust. They consider how and why certain issues gain political valence, and what opportunities certain acts of politicization provide in shifting public discourse.
“A Spectrum of (Dis)Belief: Coronavirus Frames in a Rural Midwestern Town in the United States”
February 9th, 2021
Emily Mendenhall and her co-authors investigate how society in rural America reacted to the coronavirus outbreaks of 2020. Without government COVID-19 mandates, conflicting moral beliefs divided American communities. Social fragmentation, based on conflicting values, led to an incomplete pandemic response in the absence of government mandates, opening the floodgates to coronavirus.
“Transformative Experiences and A Young Doctor’s Notebook”
January 23rd, 2021
Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Dr. Andrew Lipsky look at LA Paul’s Transformative Experience to understand the implications and rationale behind the decision of becoming a physician.
“Pregnant Women & Vaccines Against Emerging Epidemic Threats: Ethics Guidance for Preparedness, Research, and Response”
January 3rd, 2021
Maggie Little and other researchers take a look at the way in which pregnant women and their offspring have been historically excluded from research agendas and investment strategies for vaccines against epidemic threats. They offer 22 concrete recommendations to ensure that the needs of pregnant women and their offspring are fairly addressed.
“’Thinking Too Much’: A Systematic Review of the Idiom of Distress in Sub-Saharan Africa”
January 2nd, 2021
In this systematic review, Emily Mendenhall and her co-authors take a look at the idiom “thinking too much”. This idiom is employed in cultural settings worldwide to express feelings of emotional and cognitive disquiet with psychological, physical, and social consequences on people’s well-being and daily functioning. The researchers analyze how, where, and among whom this idiom is used within varied Sub-Saharan African contexts.
“Movement for Multiple Sclerosis: A Multi-Site Partnership for Practice and Research”
November 25th, 2020
Julia Langley and other researchers introduce three dance programs developed for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). Recommendations are offered to guide safe and evidence-based dance for MS practices.
“Medical Humanities in a Pandemic: Essential and Critical”
November 9th, 2020
Dr. Lakshmi Krishnan and Dr. Anna Reisman account for the invaluable insights that the humanities offer the biomedical sciences during the COVID-19 pandemic, as a means of examining themselves, their profession, and the broader social context.
“Bats, Battiness, and the COVID-19 Pandemic”
October 13th, 2020
McNeill reflects on the ways that have made the pandemic an environmental history event.
“Taking Pandemic Sequelae Seriously: From the Russian Influenza to COVID-19 Long-Haulers”
October 12th, 2020
Dr. Lakshmi Krishnan and Mark Honigsbaum look back to the Russian influenza and the historical accounts of the sequelae to make sense of the experience of the COVID-19 long-haulers in the present.
“Past Pandemics and Climate Variability Across the Mediterranean”
September 19th, 2020
Timothy Newfield and his co-authors explore potential associations between pandemic disease and climate in Mediterranean history. They make sense of the influence that meteorological, climatological and environmental factors had on historical disease outbreaks.
“Historical Insights on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, and Racial Disparities: Illuminating a Path Forward”
September 15th, 2020
Dr. Lakshmi Krishnan, Dr. S. Michelle Ogunwole and Dr. Lisa A. Cooper examine the racial health disparities in the historical arc of the 1918 influenza pandemic. This examination provides a understand critical structural inequities and health care gaps that have historically contributed to and continue to compound disparate health outcomes among communities of color.
“Metabolic Reflections: Blurring the Line between Trauma and Diabetes”
August 24th, 2020
Emily Mendenhall argues for clinical studies of diabetes to recognize the impacts of chronic stress and trauma on metabolism. In her anthropological research, she has identified how lines between trauma and diabetes are blurred and violence and subjugation may irreversibly impact metabolism, even across generations. Thus, changes to diet and exercise alone will not solve the global and local undercurrents of the diabetes epidemic.
“Palliative Care Consultation and Effect on Length of Stay in a Tertiary-Level Neurological Intensive Care Unit”
August 19th, 2020
The team of researchers that includes Dr. Michael Pottash and Dr. Hunter Groninger investigated the characteristics and impact of palliative care consultation for patients in a neurological intensive care unit (ICU) at a large tertiary-care hospital.
“What We May Learn – And Need – From Pandemic Fiction”
July 21st, 2020
James Giordano and Jane Doherty explore the reasons why people might be looking at science fiction stories since the global outbreak of COVID-19, and identify key takeaways of what we may learn from pandemic fiction.
“Cripistemologies of Crisis: Emergent Knowledges for the Present”
July 12th, 2020
Theodora Danylevich and Alyson Patsavas introduce the essays in “Cripistemologies of Crisis: Emergent Knowledges for the Present”, the Spring 2021 issue of the Lateral Journal.
“Seeing COVID-19 through José Saramago’s Blindness”
June 20th, 2020
Daniel Marchalik and Dmitriy Petrov propose an approach to the novel Blindness, which would allow us to process the emotional devastation, socioeconomic impacts, and pressures on front-line health-care workers that continue to shape our world.
“Practicing Serious Illness Conversations in Graduate Medical Education”
June 3rd, 2020
Dr. Michael Pottash and his co-authors address the lack of routine practice opportunities in medical training to have a serious illness conversation, including discussing patients’ expectations, concerns, and preferences regarding an advancing illness. By testing incorporating a serious illness conversation into routine trainee practice, they found that trainees found it to be an important addition to their routine practice. Patients found the conversation to be important, reassuring, and of better quality than their usual visits.
“Health Disparities in the Black Community: An Imperative for Racial Equity in the District of Columbia”
May 27th, 2020
This publication, that had Dr. Christopher King as lead author, illuminates the entrenched health and socioeconomic disparities that help explain why approximately three quarters of the deaths associated with COVID-19 in Washington DC have been among the African American community.
“Views among Malawian Women about Joining HIV Prevention Clinical Trials when Pregnant”
May 27th, 2020
Maggie Little and her co-authors conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with reproductive-aged women in Malawi, in order to understand their views about participating in biomedical HIV prevention research during pregnancy.
“Deconstructing PTSD: Trauma and Emotion among Mexican Immigrant Women”
February 11th, 2020
Emily Mendenhall and her co-authors investigate traumatic experience in life history narratives of low-income Mexican immigrant women in Chicago.
“Chronic Pain and Illness: States of Privilege and Bodies of Abuse”
February 6th, 2020
Theodora Danylevich explores the relationship between chronic conditions and the geopolitical, social and environmental factors of Modernity.
“Taking Care of the Researcher –a Nature and Art-Related Activity Retreat: Sharing Natural Space Puts Humanity into Perspective”
January 1st, 2020
Julia Langley and her co-authors examine the use of a nature and art-related activity retreat designed for researchers. The purpose was to evaluate if and how researchers perceived different workshop experiences set in nature as meaningful and important with regards to their self-care.
“The Justinianic Plague: An Inconsequential Pandemic?”
December 2nd, 2019
Timothy Newfield and his co-authors challenge current consensus about the number of deaths and significance of the Justinianic Plague.
“Progress and nostalgia in A Visit from the Goon Squad”
November 16th, 2019
Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Ann Jurecic write about the tension between yearning for the future and nostalgia for the past in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, and how that tension plays out in medicine.
“Physicians, Oaths, and Vampires”
September 21st, 2019
Dr. Lakshmi Krishnan and Dr. Daniel Marchalik analyze John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819). They assess the power of oaths, looking at the physicians’ burnout derived from the Hippocratic Oath.
“The Impact of Non-Medical Reading on Clinician Burnout: A National Survey of Palliative Care Providers”
September 8th, 2019
The team of researchers that includes Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Dr. Hunter Groninger studies the impact of non-medical reading on burnout in hospice and palliative care physicians. They suggest that reading non-medical literature on a consistent basis may be associated with a significantly decreased likelihood of burnout.
“Preparing for Emerging Infections Means Expecting New Syndemics”
July 27th, 2019
Emily Mendenhall and Colin J. Carlson explain the importance of syndemic thinking in complicating our understanding of epidemics like the Zika virus outbreak in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“Rapid Range Shifts in African Anopheles Mosquitoes Over the Last Century”
June 19th, 2019
The team of researchers that includes Emily Mendenhall and Timothy Newfield uses historical data to trace range shifts in Anopheles mosquitoes, which are the vector of malaria and several neglected tropical diseases.
“Institutional Madness: Shakespeare as Hospital Survival Guide”
May 25th, 2019
Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Arthur Frank look at how Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure might offer comfort and companionship for patients facing the institutional madness of hospitals, seen as kingdoms ruled by bizarre or irrational rules.
“Women’s Views about Contraception Requirements for Biomedical Research Participation”
May 8th, 2019
Maggie Little and her co-authors inquire on the views of women in the U.S. and in Malawi around the requirement of contraception among reproductive aged women in biomedical studies. They explore when such requirements are appropriate.
“‘Wasting Away’: Diabetes, Food Insecurity, and Medical Insecurity in the Somali Region of Ethiopia”
March 20th, 2019
Emily Mendenhall and Lauren Carruth investigate rising concerns about diabetes among Somalis in eastern Ethiopia. They focus on communities where obesity is rare and people face chronic food insecurity, forced displacement, recurrent humanitarian crises, and lack of access to medical care.
“Physician Burnout in the Modern Era”
March 2nd, 2019
Dr. Daniel Marchalik looks at physicians’ professional stress through a historical lens. By examining different historical moments —from 19th century accounts of the “distinguished success” to “scandalous misconduct” of medical apprentices, to the 1970s advances in our understanding of burnout—, he considers the effects of the new wave of modernization on physicians.
“The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change”
February 23rd, 2019
Emily Mendenhall and Merrill Singer respond to the work the The Lancet Commission on the Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change.
“Malaria Vaccine Trials in Pregnant Women: An Imperative Without Precedent”
February 4th, 2019
Although pregnant women are highly susceptible to Plasmodium falciparum malaria, leading to substantial maternal, perinatal, and infant mortality, no trials of malaria vaccines have ever been conducted in pregnant women. This publication, co-authored by Maggie Little, resulted from the discussions held at an expert meeting convened in December 2016 at NIAID, NIH, in Rockville, Maryland to deliberate on the rationale and design of malaria vaccine trials in pregnant women.
“An Ethnopsychology of Idioms of Distress in Urban Kenya”
January 23rd, 2019
Emily Mendenhall and her co-authors propose a preliminary model of ethnopsychology which incorporates local and global idioms of distress used by urban Kenyans to express suffering, pain, or illness.
“When We Document End-of-Life Care, Words Still Matter”
September 21st, 2018
Dr. Hunter Groninger and Anne M. Kelemen highlight the findings of the study “Language Used by Health Care Professionals to Describe Dying at an Acute Care Hospital”, and how providers’ discomfort in employing clear, direct terms when talking about dying can have unintended consequences, such as miscommunication, and missed or delayed opportunities to engage in the grieving process.
“Understanding Heartbreak: From Takotsubo to Wuthering Heights”
September 8th, 2018
Dr. Lakshmi Krishnan and Dr. Daniel Marchalik discuss the poetic and medical languages to describe heartbreak.
“Ambiguity in End-of-Life Care Terminology—What Do We Mean by ‘Comfort Care?'”
September 4th, 2018
Dr. Hunter Groninger and Anne M. Kelemen explore the ambiguity in the terminology associated with end-of-life care, highlighting the need to talk about what “comfort care” or “comfort measures” actually mean.
“Rethinking cures in Jesse Ball’s A Cure for Suicide”
March 31st, 2018
Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Ann Jurecic delve into Jesse Ball’s A Cure for Suicide to explore the experience of loneliness in the present, and the need to better address its social and cultural causes.
“Post-Transplantation Palliative Care: Misconceptions and Disincentives”
January 15th, 2018
Dr. Michael Pottash argues for the value of providing palliative care to transplant recipients, which faces two major barriers: misconceptions about the goals of palliative care, and the quality care outcome measures that have the unintended consequence of disincentivizing its routine use.
“The Return to Literature—Making Doctors Matter in the New Era of Medicine”
December 14th, 2017
As medicine faces rapid changes in our current era, which include the widespread use of artificial intelligence, it is also expected for the nature of physicians’ jobs to change, as well as medical education. Dr. Marchalik explores the innovative approach of the Literature and Medicine Track of the Georgetown University School of Medicine, and suggests ways in which literature could be used to prepare future doctors for the evolving demands of the medical field.
“Visual Intelligence Education as an Innovative Interdisciplinary Approach for Advancing Communication and Collaboration Skills in Nursing Practice”
December 7th, 2017
Julia Langley and her co-authors made a pilot intervention seeking to integrate visual intelligence skills into nursing education. The pilot suggests that teaching visual intelligence skills has potential to impact communication and collaboration.
“Integrating Spiritual Care into Palliative Consultation: A Case Study in Expanded Practice”
May 26th, 2017
Dr. Hunter Groninger and his co-authors describe the role of a palliative care chaplain embedded within the interdisciplinary palliative care team, demonstrating how the role of this palliative chaplain differs from that of a traditional hospital chaplain.
“Poor Prognostication: Hidden Meanings in Word Choices”
April 21st, 2017
The absence of a standardised language to express prognostic information can be a barrier for providing realistic information to patients and their families. The team of researchers that includes Dr. Michael Pottash and Dr. Hunter Groninger surveyed a random sample of internal medicine attending physicians and residents to better determine perception of word choice related to documentation of patient prognosis and hospice eligibility in the medical record.