The history of medicine is both a study of medicine throughout history as well as a multidisciplinary field of study that seeks to explore and understand medical practices, both past and present, throughout human societies.
Surgery is a medical specialty that uses manual and/or instrumental techniques to diagnose or treat pathological conditions, to alter bodily functions, to reconstruct or improve aesthetics and appearance, or to remove unwanted tissues or foreign bodies. The subject receiving the surgery is typically a person, but can also be a non-human animal.
An ecovillage is a traditional or intentional community with the goal of becoming more socially, culturally, economically, and/or ecologically sustainable. An ecovillage strives to produce the least possible negative impact on the natural environment through intentional physical design and resident behavior choices. It is consciously designed through locally owned, participatory processes to regenerate and restore its social and natural environments. Most range from a population of 50 to 250 individuals, although some are smaller, and traditional ecovillages are often much larger. Larger ecovillages often exist as networks of smaller sub-communities. Some ecovillages have grown through like-minded individuals, families, or other small groups—who are not members, at least at the outset—settling on the ecovillage's periphery and participating de facto in the community. There are currently more than 10,000 ecovillages around the world.
Patch Adams is a 1998 American biographical comedy-drama film directed by Tom Shadyac and starring Robin Williams in the lead role, Monica Potter, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bob Gunton, Daniel London, and Peter Coyote. Set in the late 1960s/early 1970s, it is loosely based on the life story of Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams and the book Gesundheit: Good Health Is a Laughing Matter by Dr. Adams and Maureen Mylander. The film received generally unfavorable reviews from critics, with criticism for the sentimentality and direction, but was a box office success and grossed $202.3 million against a $50–90 million budget.
An arterial line is a thin catheter inserted into an artery.
Clown Care, also known as hospital clowning, is a program in health care facilities involving visits from specially trained clowns. They are colloquially called "clown doctors" which is a trademarked name in several countries. These visits to hospitals have been shown to help in lifting patients' moods with the positive power of hope and humor. There is also an associated positive benefit to the staff and families of patients.
The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus is the oldest known medical text in Egyptian history, dated to c. 1825 BCE, during the Twelfth Dynasty. The Papyrus addresses gynecological health concerns, pregnancy, fertility, and various treatments.
A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency department to treat urgent health problems ranging from fire and accident victims to a sudden illness. A district hospital typically is the major health care facility in its region, with many beds for intensive care and additional beds for patients who need long-term care.
Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by reducing pain and suffering. Hospice care provides an alternative to therapies focused on life-prolonging measures that may be arduous, likely to cause more symptoms, or are not aligned with a person's goals.
The state of medical knowledge at the time of the Civil War was extremely primitive. Doctors did not understand infection, and did little to prevent it. It was a time before antiseptics, and a time when there was no attempt to maintain sterility during surgery. No antibiotics were available, and minor wounds could easily become infected, and hence fatal. While the typical soldier was at risk of being hit by rifle or artillery fire, he faced an even greater risk of dying from disease.
Michael Abraham Shadid was a Lebanese physician who founded the first medical cooperative in Elk City, Oklahoma, in 1931. He was the first president of the Cooperative Health Federation of America, and an advocate for cooperative health care and preventive medicine.
The New York Foundation is a charitable foundation which gives grants to non-profit organizations supporting community organizing and advocacy in New York City.
The Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine is the medical school of Virginia Commonwealth University, a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. It is the largest and oldest continuously operating medical school in Virginia. The school traces its beginnings to the 1838 opening of the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, which in 1854 became an independent institution known as the Medical College of Virginia (MCV). In 1968, MCV joined with the Richmond Professional Institute to form Virginia Commonwealth University. The School of Medicine is one of six schools on VCU's MCV Campus, which includes the VCU Medical Center and Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU.
Marsha Garces Williams is an American film producer and philanthropist. She was married to actor and comedian Robin Williams from 1989 to 2010.
Neil Barnett Shulman was an American doctor and medical writer, who was an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at Emory University. He conducted and published clinical research on hypertension and was the co-founder of the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks. He was also the author of many books promoting medical literacy for both adults and children, as well as humour and children's books. He was the associate producer of the 1991 film Doc Hollywood, based on one of his books.
Suzanne Gordon is an American journalist and author who writes about healthcare delivery and health care systems and patient safety and nursing. Gordon coined the term "Team Intelligence," to describe the constellation of skills and knowledge needed to build the kind of teams upon which patient safety depends. Her work includes, First Do Less Harm: Confronting the Inconvenient Problems of Patient Safety, a collection of essays edited with Ross Koppel and Beyond the Checklist: What Else Health Care Can Learn from Aviation Safety and Teamwork, written with commercial pilot Patrick Mendenhall and medical educator Bonnie Blair O’Connor, with a foreword by Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger.
Sir David Michael Baldock Hall is a British paediatrician. Hall is most notable for publishing a paper with Dr Gillian Baird, on the role of primary care in identifying developmental problems in children that later resulted in the series of books being published called Health for all children that led in turn to one of the first attempts to apply an objective evidence based approach to medical practice for children. Hall is emeritus professor of community paediatrics at the Institute of General Practice and Primary Care, University of Sheffield.
Mark Charles Rogers is an American physician, medical entrepreneur, professor, and hospital administrator. He is a pediatrician, anesthesiologist, and cardiologist with a specialty in critical care medicine. With a medical career focused on pediatric intensive care, Rogers was founder of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital, working there from 1977 to 1991. He concurrently served as chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine beginning in 1980 and was a professor of anesthesiology and pediatrics throughout his tenure at Johns Hopkins.
Elfriede Paul was a German physician and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime. Paul, a small and energetic woman, was a communist member of the anti-fascist resistance group that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr. Paul was one of the few members of the Red Orchestra Group to survive imprisonment at the hands of the Gestapo. After the war, she was responsible for drafting health policies for the German Democratic Republic.
Mark Dominik Alscher is a German physician, managing director of Bosch Health Campus Stuttgart and distinguished professor at University of Tübingen. He is known for his work in the field of peritoneal dialysis, acute renal failures and medical expert systems.
