In Focus
Every month Medhum highlights timely themes in medicine, culture, and the arts, exploring their impact on human experiences. We want to hear from you! If there are issues and topics you’d like us to tackle, please Let Us Know!
October marks Mental Health Awareness Month, and we spotlight moving narratives that explore struggles, resilience, and healing in illness.
Bibliophobia by Sarah Chihaya
Blending memoir and criticism, Sarah Chihaya’s Bibliophobia explores depression, identity, and the perilous yet healing power of books.
How To Be Depressed by George Scialabba
A candid, unconventional book blending psychiatric records, personal struggle, and practical tips, offering rare insight into living with depression.
The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang
This essay collection explores living with severe mental illness, blending memoir, cultural critique, and reflections on resilience, treatment, and identity.
One Friday in April by Donald Antrim
Donald Antrim’s memoir confronts suicide, psychosis, and survival with unflinching honesty, blending personal crisis, hospitalization, and hard-earned hope.
The Fall marks the beginning of the school year. To celebrate our children’s return to the classroom, we turn our lens to Parenting.
The Names by Florence Knapp and Flashlight by Susan Choi
Sudden life-altering events shape human experience; The Names and Flashlight explore divergent consequences through contrasting narrative styles.
From Tigers to Otaku
Parenting in Chinese Canadian immigrant families carries both triumphs and struggles, shaping children into overachievers—or isolating, withdrawn adolescents.
Second Life by Amanda Hess
A powerful blend of memoir and critique, Amanda Hess examines pregnancy, technology, and parenting amid modern medicine’s promises and digital noise.
This month we continue to explore how the arts and the humanities can help us understand trauma, war and displacement.
Regeneration by Pat Barker
A powerful antiwar novel exploring trauma, identity, and the psychological toll of combat on soldiers and those who treat them.
The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker
A gripping exploration of wartime paranoia, identity, and psychological trauma on the British Home Front during World War I.
The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
A haunting, fast-paced conclusion to Barker’s trilogy, exploring memory, mortality, and symbolic healing against the backdrop of war.
This month we focus on Chekhov, a master of literature and medicine, balancing storytelling and healing brilliantly within a brief 44 years.
Cold Eye, Warm Heart: Medicine and Anton Chekhov
A moving portrait of Anton Chekhov, whose dual life as physician and writer reveals the deep interplay between healing and storytelling.
An Awkward Business by Anton Chekhov
A country doctor grapples with guilt and class privilege after striking his drunken assistant in this tale of conscience and authority.
The Grasshopper by Anton Chekhov
Chekhov’s tragic tale of love, betrayal, and regret, where a devoted doctor’s sacrifice exposes life’s cruel ironies.
Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov
A powerful story of disillusionment, *Ward No. 6* explores suffering, detachment, and the psychological toll of a life without meaning.
Ionych by Anton Chekhov
A provincial doctor’s romantic disillusionment gives way to greed and apathy in Chekhov’s biting portrait of emotional and moral decay.
A Doctor’s Visit by Anton Chekhov
A young doctor’s visit to a factory owner’s daughter reveals the emotional roots of illness through empathy, confinement, and human connection.
A Nervous Breakdown by Anton Chekhov
Chekhov’s A Nervous Breakdown follows a law student’s moral collapse after confronting society’s apathy toward the realities of prostitution.
Enemies by Anton Chekhov
A grieving doctor is pulled from his dying child’s side, only to face betrayal, class tension, and moral outrage.
This month we spotlight video games, a growing industry shaping people and profoundly influencing the medical humanities.
Forspoken – A Tale of Chronic Trauma
Forspoken blends role-playing, action, and open-world gameplay to tell a magical yet deeply human story about chronic trauma and healing.
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
A poignant documentary exploring how a young man with muscular dystrophy found profound connection and purpose in virtual worlds.
A Missing Genre: Video Games in the Health Humanities
Video games offer powerful narratives and emotional depth—it’s time health humanities embraced them as meaningful, transformative cultural texts.
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
Our digital addiction is reshaping reality, and unless we reclaim real-world connections, the future may be irreversibly anxious.