A Film and Story-Telling Festival Focuses on Disability

The program featured a dizzying spectrum of disability perspectives and concerns on film. It also included talks, photographs, parties and story-telling in presented by “The Moth.”

Posted in Life in NYC, Medical Education, Movies, Theater, Under the RadarTagged , , , , , , 2 Comments on A Film and Story-Telling Festival Focuses on Disability

What to do about a Curved Spine? On Data, ‘BodyCast’ and New Directions

The NIH provides some information on scoliosis …Life is curved, usually, and maybe it’s better that way. Perhaps that was the Bocanegra’s point,

Posted in from the author, Life as a Patient, Life in NYC, scoliosis, Theater, Women's HealthTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment on What to do about a Curved Spine? On Data, ‘BodyCast’ and New Directions

Looking Back on ‘The Normal Heart,’ and Patients’ Activisim

They were impatient with the pace of research and physicians’ protocols, and spoke out emphatically about their needs: for more research; for prevention and treatment; for easier access to new drugs; and, simply, for good medical care.

Posted in Empowered Patient, Essential Lessons, Infectious Disease, Life as a Patient, Reviews, TheaterTagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment on Looking Back on ‘The Normal Heart,’ and Patients’ Activisim

Good People, a New Play About Chance, Decisions and Fate

A short note on Good People, the title of a new play at the Manhattan Theatre Club starring Frances McDormand – It’s a simple story, at some level, about a middle-aged woman from south Boston who loses her job. She has a disabled, adult daughter who needs caregiving, and she needs money. She contacts some […]

Posted in Life in NYC, Reviews, Theater, Women's HealthTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment on Good People, a New Play About Chance, Decisions and Fate

Portrait of a Peculiar Relationship at the End of Life

Last weekend I went to see a strange, slightly unnerving play, The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore by Tennessee Williams. It’s a sad take on the end of life, and desperation in some lonely characters. Olympia Dukakis plays an aging, vain, older woman who’s dying of an unnamed condition. She takes morphine injections help […]

Posted in Life, Life in NYC, Medical Ethics, Reviews, TheaterTagged , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment on Portrait of a Peculiar Relationship at the End of Life

A Play About the Life and Work of Dr. Rosalind Franklin

Franklin’s story starts like this: She was born in 1920 to a Jewish family in London. She excelled in math and science. She studied physical chemistry at Cambridge, where she received her undergraduate degree in 1941. After performing research in photochemistry in the following year on scholarship, she joined the British Coal Utilisation Research Association (BCURA) and carried out basic investigations on the micro-structure of coal and carbon compounds, and so earned a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. She was a polyglot, and next found herself in Paris at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimique de l’Etat, where she picked up some fine skills in x-ray crystallography.

You get the picture: she was smart, well-educated and totally immersed in physical chemistry before, during and after WWII. Single-minded and focused, you might say –

Posted in Essential Lessons, Medical History, Occupational health, Reviews, Science, Theater, Women's HealthTagged , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on A Play About the Life and Work of Dr. Rosalind Franklin

No Quick Fix

“If it’s chafed, put some lotion on it.”

– some practical advice, offered by the character portraying Andrew Jackson, speaking toward the audience in the last scene of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, a play written and directed by Alex Timbers

Posted in health care delivery, Life in NYC, Medical History, Reviews, TheaterTagged , , , , , , , , 2 Comments on No Quick Fix
newsletter software