Clik here to view.
Desmond O’Neill: Combating bar stool gerontology
One of the greatest challenges for us as we age is “bar stool gerontology.” For most complex subjects—nuclear physics, molecular biology, or philosophy—most of us recognise that some learning and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Desmond O’Neill: HIP medicine
In the last month I have had two wonderful musical experiences in Dublin, each causing me to reflect on one of the key challenges of medicine, that of getting to the core of what is troubling people...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Desmond O’Neill: Peak medical students
Asked to do a column on medical education for an Irish newspaper, I was struck by how little professional debate we have had on the extraordinary increase in student intakes in these islands....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Desmond O’Neill: Ageing—simply complicated
Carinthia is a fascinating corner of Austria, formally included in the new Austrian Republic in a plebiscite in 1919 and imbued with the confluence of Austrian, Slovenian, and Italian cultures. Packed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Desmond O’Neill: Mozart in the ballpark
A live telecast of The Marriage of Figaro to a baseball stadium from the Kennedy Centre provided a delightful and illuminating synergy with the 2016 conference of the National Centre for Creative...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Desmond O’Neill: Technology and the medical humanities
One of the great challenges of progress in the medical humanities is that of time and space. Interested clinicians tend not to work in the arts blocks of universities, and humanities scholars rarely...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Desmond O’Neill: Singing in the New Year
Little in human nature escapes the scrutiny of scholarship, and New Year resolutions are no exception. We tap into a tradition that dates back to Babylonian times. Their new year began in March with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Desmond O’Neill: Eros and Methuselah—love and sexuality are important parts...
Although Valentine’s Day is often criticised as a cynical creation of florists and the greeting cards industry, it is a useful focal point for considering love and sexuality as elements of human...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Desmond O’Neill: Going digital for global medical humanities
To those teaching and researching the medical humanities, major exhibitions of great art represent a wonderful opportunity for a focal illumination of how medicine and the arts interact. However, for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Desmond O’Neill: Medicalisation as a pejorative term
It is over 40 years since Engel described the biopsychosocial model for medicine, largely adopted in principle by the healthcare establishment if, as with most good intentions, imperfectly executed in...
View Article