Browsing by Author "Ostherr, Kirsten"
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Item Artificial Intelligence and Medical Humanities(Springer, 2020) Ostherr, Kirsten; Medical Humanities ProgramThe use of artificial intelligence in healthcare has led to debates about the role of human clinicians in the increasingly technological contexts of medicine. Some researchers have argued that AI will augment the capacities of physicians and increase their availability to provide empathy and other uniquely human forms of care to their patients. The human vulnerabilities experienced in the healthcare context raise the stakes of new technologies such as AI, and the human dimensions of AI in healthcare have particular significance for research in the humanities. This article explains four key areas of concern relating to AI and the role that medical/health humanities research can play in addressing them: definition and regulation of “medical” versus “health” data and apps; social determinants of health; narrative medicine; and technological mediation of care. Issues include data privacy and trust, flawed datasets and algorithmic bias, racial discrimination, and the rhetoric of humanism and disability. Through a discussion of potential humanities contributions to these emerging intersections with AI, this article will suggest future scholarly directions for the field.Item Conceptualisation and Implementation of a Competency-based Multidisciplinary Course for Medical Students in Neurosurgery(Dove Press, 2024) Picht, Thomas; Roethe, Anna L.; Kersting, Katharina; Burzlaff, Milena; Calvé, Maxime Le; Schenk, Robert; Chakkalakal, Denny; Vajkoczy, Peter; Ostherr, Kirsten; Medical Humanities Research InstitutePresenting the conceptualization and implementation of a multidisciplinary course for medical students on competency-based learning in neurosurgeryItem Death in the Digital Age: A Systematic Review of Information and Communication Technologies in End-of-Life Care(Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., 2016) Ostherr, Kirsten; Killoran, Peter; Shegog, Ross; Bruera, EduardoBackground: End-of-life (EOL) communication plays a critical role in ensuring that patients receive care concordant with their wishes and experience high quality of life. As the baby boomer population ages, scalable models of end-of-life communication will be needed to ensure that patients receive appropriate care. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) may help address the needs of this generation; however, few resources exist to guide the use of ICTs in EOL care. Objective: The primary objective was to identify the ICTs being used in EOL communication. The secondary objective was to compare the effectiveness of different ICTs in EOL communication. Methods: The study was a systematic review, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We systematically searched seven databases for experimental and observational studies on EOL communication between doctors and patients using ICTs, published in 1997ﾖ2013. Results: The review identified 38 relevant articles. Eleven types of technology were identified: video, website, telephone, videoconferencing, e-mail, telemonitoring, Internet search, compact disc, fax, PalmPilot, and short message service (SMS) text messaging. ICTs were most commonly used to provide information or education, serve as decision aids, promote advance care planning (ACP), and relieve physical symptom distress. Conclusions: The use of ICTs in EOL care is a small but growing field of research. Additional research is needed to adapt older, analog technologies for use in the digital age. Many of the interventions discussed in this review do not take full advantage of the affordances of mobile, connected health ICTs. The growing evidence base for e-health applications in related fields should guide future interventions in EOL care.Item How Do We See COVID-19? Visual Iconographies of Racial Contagion(Duke University Press, 2020) Ostherr, KirstenContagion media have historically performed the dual functions of scientific and ideological persuasion, often deploying an iconography of racial contagion that combines these two functions. In efforts to halt the spread of the virus, health, science, and media organizations create visual imagery to teach the public to imagine we can see and therefore avoid contaminants that are invisible to the naked eye. Comparison of COVID-19 with other global disease outbreaks shows how a core set of contagion media visualizations are repeatedly deployed with subtle adaptations for unique diseases and display interfaces. The variations among different corpora of contagion media point to the interplay among persistent, transhistorical tropes, particular sites of meaning production, and novel technical affordances. This article will examine a subset of these representational techniques, including microscopic images of the virus, close-ups of disease vectors, global and local maps of contagion, health workers in biohazard suits, and visibly ill patients. The essay argues that techniques for visualizing the invisible produce a narrative logic of causality in COVID-19 that reinforces racist and xenophobic discourses of containment and control with direct and deadly consequences. Mitigation of this pandemic and future pandemics will require not only medical but also representational interventions.Item Love in the Time of Cinema: The Global Tracks of Hindi Film/Songs(2014-04-25) Sunya, Samhita; Joseph, Betty; Ostherr, Kirsten; Kripal, Jeffrey J.; Radhakrishnan, RatheeshThe stylized, romantic song sequence -- or the form(ula) of "song-dance-romance" -- has remained the most visible, audible, and mobile aspect of Hindi popular cinema. Studies of Hindi film songs have taken the shape of either extended ethnographies of production practices or edited collections that hold together a number of case studies of the songs' circulation through various contemporary locations (two are titled GLOBAL BOLLYWOOD, for example). My sustained analysis of the work of Hindi film songs through various periods of the post-sound era instead looks at poetic expressions of romance as arguments, within contests over national culture, (world) cinema, and the modern pleasures of the popular. My first chapter focuses on PADOSAN (1968), an exceptionally self-referential film that stages a zealous -- but easily missed -- argument upholding the romantic enchantments of Hindi popular cinema. I show that the fixity of an authorial voice is destabilized by the songs' form, as voice and body are rent asunder through the practice of playback that in turn lends itself to practices of repetition, recombination, and reimagination. My second chapter zooms out to consider a longer genealogy of the "City of Love," a trope that emerged in the radical poetry attributed to medieval saint-mystics, but very quickly became synonymous with the seductive artifices of popular cinema upon repeated invocations within film songs. I argue that the cinematic City of Love delineates what is at once a public domain as well as an intimate space of engagement with popular cinema-as-modernity. My third chapter moves from the cinematic city to world cinema in the postwar, post-independence decades. I historicize the emergence of world cinema amidst questions of cinematic form and translation, and I track the movements of romantic Hindi film/songs in projects of cinematic diplomacy through instances of Indo-Soviet and Indo-Iranian coproduction. My final chapter cuts to an analysis of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, by which I establish the stakes of my project in the discrepancy between the visibility of globalized media among Anglophone audiences, i.e., the subtexts of Bollywood in SLUMDOG, and the extent to which this visibility has necessarily driven critical, historical understandings of such forms.Item Push the Button: Interactive Television and Collaborative Journalism in Japan(2015-04-27) Rodwell, Elizabeth Ann; Boyer, Dominic; Faubion, James; Howe, Cymene; Ostherr, Kirsten; Allison, AnneAs viewing habits have been transformed globally by on-demand services, and viewership has lagged due to competition from social and interactive technologies, television professionals have struggled to articulate a vision for their medium’s future. In Japan, a strong decline in ratings among critical under-40 demographics had already created tension within the dominant broadcast model when the Fukushima disasters ushered in a crisis of confidence in the nation's journalism. While some Japanese media professionals used the incident as an occasion to engage in self-critique, others largely circumvented the delicate questions of self-censorship, reporters’ clubs (kisha kurabu), and sponsor coercion– and focused instead on restoring audience engagement through the development and testing of pioneering interactive television technology. Meanwhile, the technological rather than ethical focus of post-Fukushima changes inspired a new journalistic movement to create alternative digital spaces for informational exchange and political expression, with the intent of harnessing interactive digital technology in a way that bypasses the government controls and self-censorship characteristic of mainstream Japanese media. Despite a common idealism and intellectual curiosity, the two groups are hindered by divergent structural limitations; television industry insiders are fighting a conservative and imitative corporate climate whose content decisions are governed by the interventions of two monolithic advertising firms, while the independent media are profoundly alienated from this system. Engaging contemporary anthropological conversations concerning the evolving nature of mass media and media professionalism in the digital era, my work tracks the Japanese independent media's epistemic project to reform public culture in Japan and dismantle longstanding barriers to freedom of the press, as well as the mass media's more subtle application of interactive technology to TV content. Thus, I argue that analysis of these Japanese media innovations prompts new theoretical consideration of the divide between expert and amateur production, the use of media to constitute social change, and the nature of television itself.Item Reflective Writing about Near-Peer Blogs: A Novel Method for Introducing the Medical Humanities in Premedical Education(Springer Nature, 2021) Bracken, Rachel Conrad; Major, Ajay; Paul, Aleena; Ostherr, KirstenNarrative analysis, creative writing, and interactive reflective writing have been identified as valuable for professional identity formation and resilience among medical and premedical students alike. This study proposes that medical student blogs are novel pedagogical tools for fostering peer-to-peer learning in academic medicine and are currently underutilized as a near-peer resource for premedical students to learn about the medical profession. To evaluate the pedagogical utility of medical student blogs for introducing core themes in the medical humanities, the authors conducted qualitative analysis of one hundred seventy-six reflective essays by baccalaureate premedical students written in response to medical student-authored narrative blog posts. Using an iterative thematic approach, the authors identified common patterns in the reflective essays, distilled major themes, coded the essays, and conducted narrative analysis through close reading. Qualitative analysis identified three core themes (empathic conflict, bias in healthcare, and the humanity of medicine) and one overarching theme (near-peer affinities). The premedical students’ essays demonstrated significant self-reflection in response to near-peer works, discussed their perceptions of medical professionalism, and expressed concerns about their future progress through the medical education system. The essays consistently attributed the impact of the medical student narratives to the authors’ status as near-peers. The authors conclude that reading and engaging in reflective writing about near-peer blog posts encourages premedical students to develop an understanding of core concepts in the medical humanities and promotes their reflection on the profession of medicine. Thus, incorporating online blogs written by medical trainees as narrative works in medical humanities classrooms is a novel pedagogical method for fostering peer-to-peer learning in academic medicine.Item The future of translational medical humanities: bridging the data/narrative divide(BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, 2023) Ostherr, Kirsten; Medical Humanities Research InstituteThis essay argues that emerging forms of translational work in the field of medical humanities offer valuable methods for engaging with communities outside of academic settings. The first section of the essay provides a synthetic overview of definitions and critical engagements with the concept of ‘translation’ in the context of medical humanities, a field that, in the wake of the COVID pandemic, can serve as an exemplar for other fields of the humanities. The second section explains the ‘data/narrative’ divide in medicine and health to demonstrate the need for new translational methodologies that can address this nexus of concern, particularly in collaboration with constituencies outside of academic settings. The third section maps out the sites and infrastructures where digital medical humanities is poised to make significant translational interventions. The final section of the essay considers data privacy and health ecology as conceptual frameworks that are necessary for bridging the data/narrative divide. Examples are drawn from the ‘Translational Humanities for Public Health’ website, which aggregates projects worldwide to demonstrate these emerging methodologies.Item Trust and privacy in the context of user-generated health data(Sage, 2017) Ostherr, Kirsten; Borodina, Svetlana; Bracken, Rachel Conrad; Lotterman, Charles; Storer, Eliot; Williams, BrandonThis study identifies and explores evolving concepts of trust and privacy in the context of user-generated health data. We define “user-generated health data” as data captured through devices or software (whether purpose built or commercially available) and used outside of traditional clinical settings for tracking personal health data. The investigators conducted qualitative research through semistructured interviews (n = 32) with researchers, health technology start-up companies, and members of the general public to inquire why and how they interact with and understand the value of user-generated health data. We found significant results concerning new attitudes toward trust, privacy, and sharing of health data outside of clinical settings that conflict with regulations governing health data within clinical settings. Members of the general public expressed little concern about sharing health data with the companies that sold the devices or apps they used, and indicated that they rarely read the “terms and conditions” detailing how their data may be exploited by the company or third-party affiliates before consenting to them. In contrast, interviews with researchers revealed significant resistance among potential research participants to sharing their user-generated health data for purposes of scientific study. The widespread rhetoric of personalization and social sharing in “user-generated culture” appears to facilitate an understanding of user-generated health data that deemphasizes the risk of exploitation in favor of loosely defined benefits to individual and social well-being. We recommend clarification and greater transparency of regulations governing data sharing related to health.Item Embargo Unnatural Disasters: Healing Epistemic Invisibility Through Digital Archiving(2024-08-06) Graham, Lindsay Diane; Ostherr, Kirsten; Michie, Helena; Howe, CymeneUnnatural Disasters: Healing Epistemic Invisibility Through Digital Archiving identifies the emerging genre of the digital disaster archive and argues that this genre exposes the concept of disaster as deeply entangled with and produced by epistemological erasure. Invested in the concept of “disaster” as unnatural and unequivocally social, political, and temporal, I connect a growing awareness of environmental precarity to this new kind of digital memory practice to examine how the archive’s methodology and infrastructure engender a vital politics of accountability. I argue that the digital archive is uniquely suited to address epistemologically produced invisibility by challenging the historical processes and systems that lead to disaster; in so doing, the archive proffers an expanded understanding of health, healing, and care from the margins. This project considers collections from disparate geographies, cultures, and languages that respond to the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill (digitized in 2010), Japan’s triple disaster (2011), and the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (2020) to explore how the digital archive is both an open encounter and an exchange of knowledge and power. To specifically reflect on the healing affordances of this increasingly popular form of cultural production, I critically approach the archive through the concepts of digital witnessing, archival methodology as recovery, healing nostalgia, digital self-help, and digitality as care, while grappling with the ways that digital tools can exacerbate or expose the unevenness of vulnerability. By delineating the socio-political processes that lead to disaster and by demonstrating how the digital archive is a potential site of activism that de-naturalizes and thus re-politicizes disaster, Unnatural Disasters charts new paths for critical disaster studies and global digital humanities and ultimately argues for a translational digital humanities approach to global disaster response and humanitarian aid.