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Artistic representations of disease are widespread yet largely ignored in health psychology research. In this paper we use two infectious diseases, tuberculosis and the plague, as tracers to study how infectious diseases are represented in novels, films, paintings, and songs. They were represented especially in terms of their causes and seriousness. Studying how diseases are represented in various art forms extends our understanding of how they are socially constructed. This knowledge can also be incorporated into the training of health care providers to sensitize them to issues in patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The Netherlands awoke with a shock to some highly publicized cases of clients suffering second-degree burns from inadequate use of laser technology for hair removal in the beauty salon. Aestheticians are increasingly offering risky and sometimes irreversible skin-enhancing treatments. Because of the complexity and hazards of the beauty profession and its proximity at times to the domain of health care, it merits attention from bioethicists. This article presents an overview of ethical issues arising within the everyday practice of the beauty salon, based on discussions with aestheticians and a survey, and reports on the development of the world's first national ethics guidelines for aestheticians. Key recommendations pertain to age limits, informed consent, confidentiality, tensions arising from aestheticians' dual role as care providers and entrepreneurs, and the management of incidental findings. This article directs scholarly effort at ethical issues in the beauty salon, and invites further discussion of a hitherto underserved field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of arts in palliative care. Diana Greenman provides a narrative about the use of concerts in hospices, hospitals and day centers and discusses the effects of music on patients. She notes on the influence of music on a patient's heartbeat, pulse rate and blood pressure. Frans Meulenberg describes how he was able to make contact with her mother following a stroke. He mentions that he was able to make her mother laugh and cry by listening to her favorite music.

Talks about the use of psoriasis as a theme in non-medical literature. Psoriasis suffered by the main character in John Updike's `The Centaur'; Appeal of the visibility of psoriasis to the imagination; Updike's novella devoted to psoriasis in `From the Journal of a Leper'; One page devoted to the disease in Nabokov's `Ada.'

The article presents the authors' reactions to the Netherlands' BNN Broadcasting Company television show "Big Donor Show". The show, which never aired, and was later found to be a publicity stunt to raise attention to the need for organ donation, was about a terminally ill woman who was going to talk to three patients in need of a kidney and choose one of them to donate her kidney to. Arguments are presented which suggest that there is no law against bad taste and that if the selection for kidneys can be turned into a spectacle there may be an increasing industry of shows, games and lotteries to perform triage for scarce medical resources.

The article presents a study which describes a course on Literature and Medicine (LitMed) designed to encourage medical students at a university medical center to incorporate the biopsychosocial model into their clinical skills. The course is contextualized and described within the field of medical humanities. It presents the composition of the course along with details of relevant novels, study materials and assignment examples. Also provided are suggestions for future teaching activities.