The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine
Rita Charon, Sayantani DasGupta, Nellie Hermann, Craig Irvine, Eric R. Marcus, Edgar Rivera Colsn, Danielle Spencer, and Maura Spiegel
• An all-in-one source for the ideas and practices of Narrative Medicine
• A synthesis of literary, philosophical, and creative approaches to health care
• Includes practical descriptions and guidelines for teaching narrative medicine in diverse settings
• A handbook of practice along with précis of theory for those who contemplate narrative medicine practice
• Addresses the question of what distinguishes narrative medicine from other forms of medical humanities or patient-centered care
Stories of Illness and Healing
“Stories of Illness and Healing” is the first collection to place the voices of women experiencing illness alongside analytical writing from prominent scholars in the field of narrative medicine. The collection includes a variety of women’s illness narratives – poetry, essays, short fiction, short drama, analyses, and transcribed oral testimonies – as well as traditional analytic essays about themes and issues raised by the narratives. “Stories of Illness and Healing” bridges the artificial divide between women’s lives and scholarship in gender, health, and medicine. The authors of these narratives are diverse in age, ethnicity, family situation, sexual orientation, and economic status. They are doctors, patients, spouses, mothers, daughters, activists, writers, educators, and performers. The narratives serve to acknowledge that women’s illness experiences are more than their diseases, that they encompass their entire lives. The pages of this book echo with personal accounts of illness, diagnosis, and treatment. They reflect the social constructions of women’s bodies, their experiences of sexuality and reproduction, and their roles as professional and family caregivers. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, “Stories of Illness and Healing” draws the connection between women’s suffering and advocacy for women’s lives.
Awards
Silver Medalist, Womens Issues Category, Independent Press Awards
Finalist, Womens Issues Category, ForeWORD Magazine Awards
Media reviews
Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health| Journal of American Medical Association| Cancer and Society (The Lancet.com)| Lake County Record| Family Medicine
Globalization and Transnational Surrogacy in India
In the twenty-first century, parenthood is no longer achieved only through gestation, adoption, or traditional surrogacy, but also via assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), where science and technology play lead roles. Furthermore, in a globalized world economy, where the movement and transfer of people and commodities are increasing to serve the interests of capitalism, gamete donation and surrogate birth can traverse innumerable geographic, socio-economic, racialized, and political borderlands. Thus, reproduction itself can be outsourced.
This edited volume explores one specific aspect of the new assisted reproductive technologies: gestational surrogacy and how its practice is changing the traditional concept of parenthood across the globe. The phenomenon of transnational surrogacy has given rise to a thriving international industry where money is being ‘legally’ exchanged for babies and ‘reproductive labor’ has taken on a lucrative commercial tone. …
Media reviews
Gender and Society
Her Own Medicine
Sayantani DasGupta, a young Indian American woman, entered medical school with a vision of saving lives and making the world a better place. What she found instead was a difficult path of politics, sexism, and red tape. Based on wry “field notes” she took throughout her journey in the healing profession, this enlightening story of learning to be a doctor will provoke tears, laughter, and thoughtful reflection.In these pages, DasGupta’s trials and tribulations–and those of her patients–are vividly rendered. Whether it is a fourteen-year-old giving birth, a terrified AIDS patient, or elderly lovebirds with a less-than-ordinary sex problem, DasGupta illuminates the miracle of life and the struggle to sustain it. Yet she also shines a penetrating light on today’s medical landscape–the militarism of medicine (where the patient is often the enemy), the gender wars, and the increasingly restrictive practice of managed care. A remarkable account of medicine on the cusp of the twenty-first century, HER OWN MEDICINE is filled with wisdom and written with grace, lucid intellect, and a striking respect for life and the profession that heals it.
Media Review
Ms. Magazine