The Arc Toward Hope in Postapocalyptic American Films: From On the Beach to The Midnight Sky.

An arc toward hope in postapocalyptic American films can be seen between Stanley Kramer's 1959 film On the Beach, based on Nevil Shute's 1957 novel of the same name, and George Clooney's 2020 film The Midnight Sky, adapted from Lily Brooks-Dalton's 2016 novel Good Morning, Midnight. Clooney's film makes direct and indirect references to On the Beach, which brought international attention to the threat that radiation fallout from nuclear weapons could end all human life on Earth. In On the Beach, no one survives. Already underway before the COVID-19 pandemic developed, Clooney's ambitious project for The Midnight Sky underwent a script revision after filming had begun to accommodate the unexpected pregnancy of its lead actress. In the revised ending, there is hope, albeit slight, that the expectant astronaut couple aboard spaceship Aether might avoid the environmental disaster from the unspecified "event" that has occurred on Earth by returning to the moon of Jupiter their mission had explored and found capable of sustaining human life. Released on Netflix in December 2020, The Midnight Sky was viewed by millions even as the first vaccines for COVID-19 were becoming available. The arc toward hope, Clooney believes, is the right ending.

Frankenstein as Cautionary Tale for Medical Humanities? A Brief Coda.

Amidst the recent bicentennial celebrations of the first publication, in 1818, of Mary Godwin Shelley's novel Frankenstein, little attention was given to the character Henry Clerval. Yet despite his few pages in the novel, Clerval's role as a humanist foil for Victor Frankenstein is significant. This brief coda examines what contemporary readers might learn from Clerval when his character is read allegorically, and how his presence in the novel makes clear that it can serve as a cautionary tale not only for biomedical scientists, but also for medical humanists.

Why teach literature and medicine? Answers from three decades.

In this essay, I look back at some of the earliest attempts by the first generation of literature-and-medicine scholars to answer the question: Why teach literature and medicine? Reviewing the development of the field in its early years, I examine statements by practitioners to see whether their answers have held up over time and to consider how the rationales they articulated have expanded or changed in the following years and why. Greater emphasis on literary criticism, narrative ethics, narrative theory, and reflective writing has influenced current work in the field in ways that could not have been foreseen in the 1970s. The extraordinary growth of interest and work in the field nationally and, especially since 1996, internationally has included practitioners in many additional areas such as disability studies, film studies, therapeutic writing, and trauma studies. Along with the emergence of narrative medicine, this diverse community of scholars and practitioners-affiliated more through their use of narrative methodologies than the teaching of literature-makes the perennial challenge of evaluation and assessment even more complicated.

The involvement of professional medical writers in medical publications: results of a Delphi study.

OBJECTIVE: Using a Delphi Consultation process, a group of medical writers established by the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) set out to determine the current thinking on the problems of ghostwriting in medical publications and what should be done about them. In this context, ghostwriting is where a professional medical writer prepares a manuscript on behalf of a named author, but the writer is not listed as an author. METHODS: A 4-round Delphi consultation process was conducted via email to generate statements about the main issues in ghostwriting. Participants rated their agreement with the statements on a scale of 0-10. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Members of the task force strongly believed that professional medical writers can improve the quality of scientific papers, but that fact is often not recognised outside the medical writing profession. At least in part, this is because of a perception that ghostwritten papers may have been inappropriately influenced by pharmaceutical companies. One theme that emerged strongly from the discussions was transparency. Members thought it very important that the existence of a ghostwriter should always be made clear to the reader. Another strong theme was the importance of defining in detail what practices relating to ghostwriting are ethical, and what practices are not. This definition of ethical ghostwriting should be widely known, and unethical ghostwriting should be strongly condemned. Use of the term 'ghostwriting' itself was questioned. Members of the task force felt that use of a more neutral term should be encouraged. The task force suggested various activities for ensuring that above the objectives could be met, including discussions with other interested parties, such as journal editors and pharmaceutical companies, educating medical writers about ethical practices, further research into ghostwriting, and developing guidelines for ethical medical writing.

Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

The Institute for the Medical Humanities of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) was established in June 1973 to ensure that humanities teaching and research became an integral part of the education of future scientists and health-care professionals at UTMB. The multidisciplinary faculty of the Institute-who currently represent the disciplines of art, drama, history, law, literature, philosophy, and religious studies-teach in all four years of the undergraduate medical curriculum as well as in various residency programs. In addition to its focus on students and residents in the School of Medicine, the Institute has a vibrant graduate program in medical humanities with several joint degree options, including an MD/MA and an MD/PhD program, and the Institute has always included the School of Nursing, the School of Allied Health Sciences, and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in its activities. After 30 years, the Institute's commitment to health-professional education remains strong and enduring. Challenged by major curriculum reform in the School of Medicine and increasingly tight state budgets, Institute faculty members look forward to continued collaboration with their basic science and clinical colleagues to improve our evolving curriculum and to seek research funding from external sources.

Can authorship policies help prevent scientific misconduct? What role for scientific societies?

The purpose of this article is to encourage and help inform active discussion of authorship policies among members of scientific societies. The article explains the history and rationale of the influential criteria for authorship developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, examines questions about those criteria that emerge from authorship policies adopted by several U.S. medical schools, and summarizes the arguments for replacing authorship with the contributor-guarantor model. Finally, it concludes with a plea for scientific societies to play a prominent role in the ongoing debates about authorship and the alternatives as part of their efforts to encourage ethical conduct among their members. Whether or not scientific societies develop authorship policies of their own, they should undertake vigorous educational efforts to keep their new members adequately informed about the importance of authorship practices in ethical scientific research and publication.