Cultural Sutures

by Friedman, Lester D.

• ISBN13: 9780822332947
• ISBN10: 0822332949
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-06-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

Medicine and the media exist in a unique symbiosis. Increasingly, health-care consumers turn to media sources-from news reports to web sites to TV shows-for information about diseases, treatments, pharmacology, and important health issues. And just as the media scour the medical terrain for news stories and plot lines, those in the health-care industry use the media to publicize legitimate stories and advance particular agendas. The essays inCultural Suturesilluminate this deeply collaborative process by scrutinizing a broad range of interconnections between medicine and the media in print journalism, advertisements, fiction films, television shows, and documentaries and via computers.Scholars of cinema studies, philosophy, English, sociology, health-care education, women's studies, bioethics, and other fields, the contributors demonstrate how pervasively the world of medicine engages and permeates the media that surround us. Whether examining the press coverage of the Jack Kevorkian-euthanasia controversy; pondering questions about accessibility, accountability, and professionalism raised by such films asAwakenings,The Doctor, andLorenzo's Oil; analyzing the depiction of doctors, patients, and medicine onE.R.andChicago Hope; or considering the ways in which digital technologies have redefined the medical body, these essays are consistently illuminating and provocative.Contributors: Arthur Caplan; Tod Chambers; Stephanie Clark-Brown; Marc R. Cohen; Kelly A. Cole; Lucy Fischer; Lester D. Friedman; Joy V. Fuqua; Sander L. Gilman; Norbert Goldfield; Joel Howell; Therese Jones; Timothy Lenoir; Gregory Makoul; Marilyn Chandler McEntyre; Faith McLellan; Jonathan M. Metzl; Christie Milliken; Martin F. Norden; Kirsten Ostherr; Limor Peer; Audrey Shafer; Joseph Turow; Greg VandeKieft; Otto F. Wahl

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xiii
LESTER D. FRIEDMAN	1	(14)
Introduction: Through the Looking Glass: Medical Culture and the Media
1. Print Media
JONATHAN M. METZL	15	(21)
The Pharmaceutical Gaze: Psychiatry, Scopophilia, and Psychotropic Medication Advertising, 1964-1985
ARTHUR L. CAPLAN AND JOSEPH TUROW	36	(19)
Taken to Extremes: Newspapers and Kevorkian's Televised Euthanasia Incident
OTTO F. WAHL	55	(18)
Stop the Presses: Journalistic Treatment of Mental Illness
2. Advertisements
JOY V. FUQUA	73	(20)
The Nurse-Saver and the TV Hostess: Advertising Hospital Television, 1950-1970
KELLY A. COLE	93	(16)
Exorcising "Men in White" on Television: An Exercise in Cultural Power
NORBERT GOLDFIELD	109	(20)
Drive-By Medicine: Managed Care Ads on Billboards
3. Fiction Films
STEPHANIE BROWN CLARK	129	(20)
Frankenflicks: Medical Monsters in Classic Horror Films
LUCY FISCHER	149	(17)
Big Boys Do Cry: Empathy in The Doctor
MARILYN CHANDLER MCENTYRE	166	(31)
Institutional Impediments: Medical Bureaucracies in the Movies
4. Television
MARC R. COHEN AND AUDREY SHAFER	197	(18)
Images and Healers: A Visual History of Scientific Medicine
GREGG VANDEKIEFT	215	(19)
From City Hospital to ER: The Evolution of the Television Physician
SANDER L. GILMAN	234	(10)
The Fat Detective: Obesity and Disability
GREGORY MAKOUL AND LIMOR PEER	244	(19)
Dissecting the Doctor Shows: A Content Analysis of ER and Chicago Hope
5. Documentaries
MARTIN F. NORDEN	263	(17)
Reproductive Freedom, Revisionist History, Restricted Cinema: The Strange Case of Margaret Sanger and Birth Control
CHRISTIE MILLIKEN	280	(19)
Continence of the Continent: The Ideology of Disease and Hygiene in World War II Training Films
KIRSTEN OSTHERR	299	(16)
"Invisible Invaders": The Global Body in Public Health Films
THERESE JONES	315	(18)
The Medium Is the Message: Documenting the Story of Dax Cowart
6. Computers
JOEL D. HOWELL	333	(18)
Technologies Transforming Health Care: X Rays, Computers, and the Internet
TIMOTHY LENOIR	351	(22)
The Shape of Things to Come: Surgery in the Age of Medialization
FAITH MCLELLAN	373	(13)
Medicine.com: The Internet and the Patient-Physician Relationship
TOD CHAMBERS	386	(13)
Virtual Disability: On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're Not a Sick Puppy
Works Cited	399	(24)
Contributors	423	(6)
Index	429