Yesterday I saw my appendix. It was pink and tiny, quite hard to see, but how interesting to be introduced to it for the first time. In for a routine colonoscopy (my fourth, on account of a family history), I refused sedation as I always do, and I had the enormous thrill of witnessing parts […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Defenders
What does the future of legal services for the poor look like?
Posted inNonfiction
Queen Victoria’s Cramps and the History of Medicinal Marijuana in Europe
Social clubs in Europe are part of a centuries-long tradition of treating maladies with cannabis.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
A History of Scorpion Venom in Medicine
The new issue of Wired has a story about Jim Olson, a pediatric oncologist and cancer researcher whose lab is looking into whether a scorpion-venom concoction can help detect cancer cells in our bodies. Injecting our bodies with scorpion venom may sound somewhat outlandish, but it’s been used in medicine for quite a long time: […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Can ‘Mad Maps’ Offer Patients a Way to Take Charge of Their Psychiatric Care?
Like advanced directives for the dying, DuBrul explained, mad maps allow psychiatric patients to outline what they’d like their care to look like in future mental health crises. The logic is: If a person can define health, while healthy, and differentiate health from crisis, that person can shape his or her own care. The maps […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Where Do You Go When Being Around Cell Phones Makes You Sick?
In the Washingtonian, a story about people afflicted with “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” who are moving to the small town of Green Bank, West Virginia, where much of modern technology has been banned due to their possible interference with a government telescope.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Anxiety, Depression and OCD: Inside America's Zoos
Zoos contact Virga when animals develop difficulties that vets and keepers cannot address, and he is expected to produce tangible, observable results. Often, the animals suffer from afflictions that haven’t been documented in the wild and appear uncomfortably close to our own: He has treated severely depressed snow leopards, brown bears with obsessive-compulsive disorder and […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
On Being Gay in Medicine
A leading Harvard pediatrician’s story: During medical school, I was on the admissions committee. Two people interviewed each applicant and then presented to the rest of the committee. There was an applicant who was outstanding in every category; I gave him a 10 out of 10. The other committee member who in- terviewed him, a […]
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes
‘In the Name of Our Own Fear’: Eula Biss on Vaccination, Privilege and Fear
In light of the recent measles outbreak in California, I want to share this interview with Eula Biss, author of On Immunity. After the birth of her first child, Biss’ research turned to vaccination, and she ruminated on a culture in which no man, woman or child is an island. Michael Schulson interviewed Biss at Salon.
Posted inFiction, Quotes
A Modern-Day Faery Tale
I recently discovered Kelly Link, an incredible short story author with a penchant for twisty magical realism. Her new collection, Get In Trouble, comes out in February. Luckily, “The Faery Handbag” is available online.
