Over the past few days I've been linking to some short pieces I have written for The Conversation UK. I'm a fan of this platform, and not just because of the extraordinary number of 'reads' one gets - although those are impressive. Of course, these are really hits rather than reads, and many who click… Continue reading Getting the story out
Category: teaching
Greek and Roman Medicine: academic friendship
Academic friendship and collaboration...
Still harping on about hysteria… or, how long it takes to challenge a good myth
I started writing about hysteria in the mid-1980s. But I'm still needing to tell the story!
The Chameleon in the Classroom
This is a story of illness and magic from the fourth century CE. Even though Constantine had converted the Roman Empire to Christianity, paganism didn’t just lie down and die. One of the most famous pagan intellectuals was Libanius, a distinguished orator who taught rhetoric to famous Christian figures such as Basil the Great and… Continue reading The Chameleon in the Classroom
Where’s Hippocrates?
While we're thinking about Vesalius and dissection, here's a question. Do you know the ‘Where’s Wally?’ series (in the US and Canada, ‘Where’s Waldo?’)? Readers are faced with a busy scene and are asked to find Wally, distinguished by his red-and-white striped shirt, bobble hat and glasses. When I've taught fourth-year medical students about the… Continue reading Where’s Hippocrates?
Mistaking histories 