Just a quick shout out to ‘Andy’ Yang Wang. A student staff member here at the bookstore for the last two years who graduated today (quick video here) with a Masters in Economics. The only downside of this happy event is the fact that he won’t be working with us anymore.
Nicely done Andy.
Amid a flurry of anticipation and controversy (how often can we say that about a medical title?), the first three publications based on the fifth iteration of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders were dropped on our doorstep today.
More variations will be released in the coming months (Pocket Guide, Clinical Cases, Study Guide, etc.), but for now we have the full manual in hard-covered and paperback editions, and the condensed Desk Reference. All are available in-store, or online through the provided links.
From time to time we look at books dealing with the history of medicine, past examples including Dying for Victorian Medicine and Hidden Treasure. This time our featured title is The Art of Medicine, “…a unique gallery of rarely seen paintings, artifacts, drawings, prints, and extracts from manuscripts” – harvested from the Wellcome Collection in London, and edited by medical historian Julie Anderson and science writers Emm Barnes and Emma Shackleton.
Covering lands from Persia to China, cultures from prehistoric Mesoamerica to Renaissance Europe, as well as more recent examples from World War I and 2008’s “The Daily Stream of Consciousness” (by Bobby Baker, an artist chronicling her own struggle with mental illness), The Art of Medicine offers a fascinating visual record of humans and health throughout history.
You can sample more examples of AoM’s contents at this Brainpickings blog post, while the book itself is available both in our on-campus and virtual bookstore locations.
(Danny Abriel photo)
Just before the week closes, here are a few topical articles from the Dal News page about activities at the Dal School of Nursing…
Next week (May 6-12) marks the annual and international recognition of all the followers of Florence (in fact the timing of the week is linked to Florence Nightingale’s birthday on May 12th of 1820), and in recognition of the celebration, we thought we’d add a few links to our collection.
First and foremost of course, is the Canadian Nurses Association, with information about nursing careers, professional development, and current events.
But if you’re more interested in past than current events, The Canadian Museum of Civilization has an extensive collection of artifacts and documents available online, and offers such specific presentations as, Symbol of a Profession: One Hundred Years of Nurses’ Caps – tracing the evolution of the symbolic head gear from the nun’s coif to the present bare head.
Closer to home, the Nursing History Digitization Project, developed and maintained by Mount Saint Vincent University, offers a history of nursing training in Nova Scotia. (Including school-specific details. Believe it or not, there have been 25 teaching locations over the years.) In addition to text, stories are told through photos, audio interviews, and such archival glimpses into the past as a 1956 brochure for prospective applicants to the Victoria General Hospital School of Nursing, a 1938 list of student regulations from the Halifax Infirmary, and a slightly more tongue-in-cheek list of Student Nurse’s Commandments from 1950. (“…thou shalt not in the Residence partake of the company of Lady Nicotine.”)
Finally, in terms of reading materials, as an alternative to the standard reference works, Illuminating Florence (available on-line and in store), shows how constant the core goals of the nursing profession have remained over 150 years – as excerpts from her writings are connected to current practices.