The Russian Medical Humanities

Past, Present, and Future

Konstantin Starikov, Melissa L. Miller

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781978786677
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

For the first time in English, The Russian Medical Humanities: Past and Present argues that the medical humanities is a vibrant and emerging field in Post-Soviet Russia. In a unique collaboration that brings together diverse experts from both Russia and America, this volume showcases the Russian medical humanities as an interdisciplinary project that combines insights from philosophy, bioethics, anthropology, history, and literature in order to provide more compassionate medical care to patients in the twenty-first century. The chapters in this volume explore past and present humanistic trends in Russian medical training, as well as examine how Russian authors and cultural figures, some physician-writers, some without professional background in medicine of any kind, have positioned healthy and ailing bodies in their creative work. This volume's contributors, who range from literary scholars, educators, translators and poets to medical historians, librarians, museum curators, and social workers, provide empathetic insight into the experience of medical encounters which all cultures grapple with. Their work will prove useful not only to current and future health practitioners, but also to a broader audience of readers who are seeking to make compassionate and informed decisions about healthcare for their loved ones and for themselves.

Table of contents

• Table and Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction Konstantin Starikov and Melissa L. Miller
• Part I HISTORY AND EDUCATION
• Chapter One Physicians’ Charity as a Lynchpin in Forming Medical Community Evgeniya L. Panova and Maria S. Tutorskaya
• Chapter Two The History of the Formation and Maintenance of the Osteological Collections in Russia in the Nineteenth–Twenty-First Centuries Maria P. Kuzybaeva
• Chapter Three The Doctor as a Humanist An International, Interdisciplinary, and Intergenerational Project at Sechenov University Jonathan McFarland and Irina Markovina
• Chapter Four Chekhov in North American Medical Schools Surveying the Pre-COVID Attitudes of Slavic Scholars and Their Role in Medical Humanities Konstantin Starikov
• Part II MEDICAL ENCOUNTERS IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
• Chapter Five Pauline Tarnowsky and the Russian Influence on Cesare Lombroso’s Criminal Woman Frederick H. White
• Chapter Six Narrative Medicine in Chekhov and Bulgakov Melissa L. Miller
• Chapter Seven Social Cataclysm through the Doctor’s Eyes Vikentii Veresaev’s The Deadlock as Diagnostic Narrative Natalia Vygovskaia
• Chapter Eight Wards of the State Russian Medical Fiction Angela Brintlinger
• Chapter Nine Still Alice, Always Elena Dementia as a World of Possibility Jehanne Gheith
• Index
• About the Contributors