BACKGROUND Poetry plays an age-old role in the art of healing. Although medicine today seems distant from the world of poetic expression, there are surprising commonalities between the two. OBJECTIVES In this essay we reflect on three aspects of healing that are fostered by poetry. OBSERVATIONS Practicing medicine with too many facts and not enough poetry leads to dissatisfaction, disappoin...

Since the 1950s, researchers have attempted to understand reports of distant or "psychic" healing, developing experimental protocols that test the distant healing hypothesis by measuring biological changes in a target system while ruling out suggestion or self-regulation as counterexplanations. This article provides a brief overview of these "healing analog" experiments. It also provides a summ...

BACKGROUND Wound healing disorders are probably the most common post-transplantation surgical complications. It is thought that wound healing disturbance occurs due to antiproliferative effects of immunosuppressive drugs. On the other hand, success of transplantation is dependent on immunosuppressive therapies. Antihuman thymocyte globulin (ATG) has been widely used as induction therapy but the...

Evidence-based ulcer care guidelines detail optimal components of care for treatment of ulcers of different etiologies. We investigated the impact of providing specific evidence-based ulcer treatment components on healing outcomes for lower limb ulcers (LLU) among veterans in the Pacific Northwest. Components of evidence-based ulcer care for venous, arterial, diabetic foot ulcers/neuropathic ul...

Introduction A unilateral external fixator comprises of a collection of pins, clamps and sidebars to form a construct on one side of the limb that can be used to stabilise bone fractures and promote healing. An external fixator can allow the operator to alter the flexibility of the fixation. In the presence of flexible fixation, fracture healing happens through the creation of callus, which mec...

Double-row rotator cuff repair techniques incorporate a medial and lateral row of suture anchors in the repair configuration. Biomechanical studies of double-row repair have shown increased load to failure, improved contact areas and pressures, and decreased gap formation at the healing enthesis, findings that have provided impetus for clinical studies comparing single-row with double-row repai...

In new-paradigm research, empathic witnessing by the researcher might create within the researcher-participant relationship a space for participants to share and transcend their suffering. I explore this theme through the constructionist grounded theory analysis of interviews, fieldnotes, and my self-reflexive commentary from an original study conducted to understand the experiences of sufferin...

This study examines the relationship between health beliefs and the use of both prescribed medication and alternative healing agents among at least one year diagnosed hypertensives attending an hypertension out-patient clinic in a rural South African hospital. The sample included 33 men and 67 women, in the age range of 31 to 81 years, (M=60.7 years, SD=9.8 years). Main outcome measures include...

Burns are known as one of the most common forms of injury with devastating consequences. Despite the discovery of several antiseptics, burn wound healing has still remained a challenge to modern medicine. Herbal products seem to possess moderate efficacy with no or less toxicity and are less expensive compared to synthetic drugs. Burn is a well-known disorder in Iranian Traditional Medicine (IT...