I recently returned to New Zealand, the country where I grew up, and met with a childhood friend for a […]
The Hystericization of “Garbage Bag Diagnoses”
On April 24, 2014, radio and TV personality Dr. Drew Pinsky, a board-certified internist and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry […]
Sunday Morning Medicine
By Jacqueline Antonovich
-The brave and fluffy cats of WWI.
-Tech lessons from the “Dark Ages.”
-Medical conspiracy theories in history.
-How would Bill Gates teach a history class?
-The Economist’s horrible defense of slavery.
Pub Quiz #1: Ye Olde America
By Adam Turner
Welcome to the inaugural Nursing Clio Pub Quiz, the “Ye Olde America” edition. I just finished teaching a four-week summer course on US women’s history to 1870, which left my head buzzing with little facts and historical anecdotes about women in colonial America and the early republic. Being a fan of trivia (and a bit of a nerd) I decided the perfect outlet for these snippets of the past would be a blog version of the venerable pub quiz. Let’s see how you do! (No Wikipedia peeking, folks.) Good luck!
The Skinny on Back to School
Well, it’s that time of year again! The temperatures are dropping, the days are shortening, the leaves are beginning to […]
Sunday Morning Medicine
By Jacqueline Antonovich
-80 years of Fergusons.
-Victorian England’s singing pig.
-Queen Victoria’s secret sex castle.
-Why nighttime air used to be scary.
-How to donate your body to science.
-When flight attendants were nurses.
-The yellow star and the pink triangle.
The Feminist Fork
Like so many people, I have a complicated relationship with food. I’ve eaten out of anger, sadness, or excitement. At […]
I am not a Vessel: Ireland’s Reproductive Rights
by Helen McBride
In a strangely prophetic report, the United Nations (UN) committee that monitors states’ compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights warned Ireland last month that its poor record on gender equality and on-going human rights injustices certainly would result in continued human rights abuses if strong measures to remedy this were not taken.
Then, just last week, a case emerged that demonstrates how considerable these reproductive rights violations can be. The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, which introduced a total ban on abortion, was enforced on a woman who had become pregnant following rape. Earlier in her pregnancy (the eighth week, in fact), the woman had requested an abortion because she was suicidal and the pregnancy was thus risking her life. Her request was denied. Last week, she was legally forced to give birth at 25 weeks by caesarean section.
A Doula in Every Birthing Suite
By Paula A. Michaels
The question of the contraceptive mandate has garnered the lion’s share of attention regarding the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on women’s health services, most notably in the recent Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College decisions. As unquestionably important and pressing as these issues are, what has earned virtually no discussion is the opportunity that the ACA offers to improve the quality of care for women who choose to become pregnant. The potential for doulas—trained, experienced labor companions—to significantly improve health outcomes, raise patient satisfaction, and lower costs has not received the consideration it deserves.
Whose Sperm Counts?
by Lara Freidenfelds
Recently, a Canadian fertility clinic made the news because it refused to allow a white client to be impregnated with sperm from a donor of color. The clinic director told the media, “I’m not sure that we should be creating rainbow families just because some single woman decides that that’s what she wants.”
When I first read this, I felt offended. Personally. My husband and I are different races, and our kids are bi-racial. I guess I had never proclaimed us a “rainbow family,” but ok. The clinic’s decision to avoid creating bi-racial children seemed like a judgment on my family. Like, my family’s not terrible or anything, but as a society we wouldn’t want to go making extra families like mine if we can stick to normal, uni-racial families. Am I a bad mother because I ignored race when I chose my spouse? Would it have been more responsible of me to have my kids with a white father?
