For Black Scientists, the Sorrow Is Also Personal.

I have tried to live in a world that does not see color but have only succeeded in living in a world that does not see me.

Rosalind Franklin and the Advent of Molecular Biology.

Rosalind Franklin provided the key data for deriving the double helix structure of DNA. The English chemist also pioneered structural studies of colloids, viruses, and RNA. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Franklin's birth, I summarize her work, which shaped the emerging discipline of molecular biology.

The psychologist's biographer: Writing lives in the history of psychology.

How should historians employ psychological insight when seeking to understand and analyze their historical subjects? That is the essential question explored in this methodological reflection on the relationship between psychology and biography. To answer it, this paper offers a historical, historiographical, and theoretical analysis of life writing in the history of psychology. It touches down in the genres of autobiography, psychobiography, and cultural history to assess how other historians and psychologists have answered this question. And it offers a more detailed analysis of one particularly useful text, Kerry Buckley's (1989) Mechanical Man, to illuminate specific ways in which historians can simultaneously employ, historicize, and critically analyze the theories of the psychologists they study. Although ostensibly about writing biographies of eminent psychologists, this article speaks to a methodological issue facing any historian contemplating the role psychological theories should play in their historical narratives.

The Biological and Biographical Basis of Precision Medicine.

Construction of a patient narrative (case history) is a core strategy in the care of patients. Recent advances in biomarker identification and digital sensors to monitor physiological and behavioral features have made constructing a case history more complex. Notably, however, although a biological profile is increasingly a part of the patient's profile, an analogous patient-based biographical (life experience) profile is typically overlooked. Evolving concepts such as allostasis and allostatic load refer to processes promoting stability of physiological systems in the presence of diverse life experiences. Integrating details of both biology and biography is a goal of "precision medicine." In this review, we describe how complex interactions between biology and biography affect disease risk and treatment response and highlight a strategy to develop narratives that establish the integration of biology and biography as the scientific basis for precision medicine.

Volunteers in a biography project with palliative care patients - a feasibility study.

BACKGROUND: Increasing the quality of life with short interventions for vulnerable patients is one of the objectives of palliative care. Biographical approaches are used in a range of different interventions which may require considerable resources of staff time and energy. This study evaluated the feasibility of training hospice volunteers in biographical interviews of patients confronted with a life-limiting disease. For the purpose of this study, we evaluated resources such as time needed for training, coordination and supervision, outcome such as completion of the intervention in appropriate time and risks such as causing distress in patients or volunteers as major determinants of feasibility. METHODS: Nine volunteers from a hospice service attended an advanced training with an introduction to palliative care, biography work, interview techniques, transcribing and writing. Volunteers interviewed a patient and developed a written narrative from the interview. Volunteers completed a questionnaire before training and were interviewed at the end of the project. The interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and evaluated using descriptive and qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: Patients provided positive feedback from the intervention. Volunteers felt that their involvement was personally rewarding and were moved by the courage and confidence of the patients. There were no systematic problems or negative experiences reported neither by volunteers nor by patients. CONCLUSIONS: We found the use of volunteers for biography work with patients in palliative care feasible and effective in this study. Volunteers needed supervision and ongoing support in providing this intervention.

'Close confinement tells very much upon a man': Prison Memoirs, Insanity and the Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Prison.

This article explores prisoners' observations of mental illness in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British prisons, recorded in memoirs published following their release. The discipline of separate confinement was lauded for its potential to improve prisoners' minds, inducing reflection and reform, when it was introduced in the 1840s, but in practice led to high levels of mental breakdown. In order to maintain the integrity of the prison system, the prison authorities played down incidences of insanity, while prison chaplains lauded the beneficent influence of cellular isolation. In contrast, as this article demonstrates, prisoners' memoirs offer insights into the prevalence of mental illness in prison, and its poor management, as well as inmates' efforts to manage mental distress. As the prison system became more closed, uniform and penal after the 1860s, the volume of such publications increased. Oscar Wilde's evocative prison writings have attracted considerable attention, but he was only one of many prison authors criticizing the penal system and decrying the damage it inflicted on the mind. Exploration of prison memoirs, it is argued, enhances our understanding of experiences of mental disorder in the underexplored context of the prison, highlighting the prisoners' voice, agency and advocacy of reform.

Adding Multimedia Cues to Medical Providers' Online Biographies: Do Pictures, Video, and B-Roll Matter?

Developing engaging online healthcare provider biographies for prospective patients to consult is becoming a big business. Health-care systems are beginning to add more multichannel components-like videos-to these provider search tools at increasingly higher costs. Prior research finds that prospective patients desire videos offering additional footage (i.e., b-roll) displaying how a provider might interact with a patient during a consultation. Shooting and editing b-roll footage to add to providers' videos takes additional time and resources. Using predictions and questions generated from uncertainty reduction and cue summation theories, this study sought to determine whether the addition of multichannel media (e.g., a video with added b-roll) offers any greater effects in the form of reduced uncertainty, provider likability, patient satisfaction, or trust than biographies providing fewer multichannel cues. A between-subjects online experiment randomly exposed participants (n = 523) to one of four biographies with increasing levels of multichannel components (i.e., text only biography, text with picture, video, video with b-roll). Results revealed that the two video biographies generated more significant effects than text-only biographies. However, the biography with just the video of the provider (i.e., a-roll only) and the video including added b-roll were not significantly different from one another on any of the dependent variables measured. These findings indicate that there may be a limit to the number of multichannel components needed to be an effective biography to help patients select their next healthcare provider. Both theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed, in addition to future directions for research.

Allbutt of Leeds and Duchenne de Boulogne: Newly discovered insights on Duchenne by a British neuropsychiatrist.

It is well-established that Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne de Boulogne (1806-1875), and Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) were the founding fathers of Parisian and French neurology during the second half of the 19th century, although much more is known about Charcot than about his "master" Duchenne. In Britain, Thomas Clifford Allbutt (1836-1925) was Leeds' most distinguished physician of the 19th century, eventually becoming Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge. Allbutt's 1860-1861 year of postgraduate study in Paris and his friendship with Duchenne profoundly influenced his own contributions to nervous system and mental diseases, partly in collaboration with his colleague James Crichton-Browne (1840-1938) at the nearby West Riding Lunatic Asylum in Wakefield, Yorkshire. The present report briefly recalls the careers of Duchenne and Allbutt, and also presents a unique account by Allbutt of Duchenne in action at the height of his powers, investigating and defining the previously uncharted field of neuromuscular diseases with the aid of his localized electrization techniques. This account is discussed in relation to: Duchenne's personality and pioneering neurological achievements; the origins of French neurology; and the development of Anglo-French neurological relationships during the 19th century. Interestingly, both Duchenne and Crichton-Browne separately made important and much-appreciated contributions to the third major book by Charles Darwin (1809-1882), The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published in 1872.

Implications for research and practice of the biographic approach for storytelling.

Background Intensive care unit survivors face many physical and psychological difficulties during their recovery following discharge from hospital. These difficulties can significantly affect their quality of life. Healthcare providers and survivors' families often do not understand what recovery means in this population, which may affect the support provided. Aim To consider the potential of the biographical method in helping to create stories that illustrate recovery in intensive care survivors and other populations. Discussion This paper identifies how the biographical approach has provided survivors with a way to uncover the hidden parts of their lives through diaries and interviews, and reveal the hidden stories of intensive care survivorship and recovery. Conclusion The application of the biographical method enabled stories to be created that identified the disruption survivors encounter as they struggle to appear recovered. Implications for practice The biographical method can illuminate experiences uncaptured by other methods. This insight into recovery journeys can help healthcare practitioners and family members to understand and recognise the need for support during recovery.

The self as capital in the narrative economy: how biographical testimonies move activism in the Global South.

This article analyses and theorises the practice of biographical storytelling of HIV-positive AIDS activists in South Africa. Combining research in illness narratives, studies of emotions in social activism and analysis of global health institutions in Africa, I explore how biographical self-narrations are deployed to facilitate access to resources and knowledge and thus acquire material and symbolic value. I illustrate my argument through the analysis of the case of an AIDS activist who became a professional biographical storyteller. Based on the analysis which I claim to represent wider dynamics in human-rights-based health activism in the Global South, I propose the concept of narrative economies by which I mean the set of exchange relationships within which biographical self-narrations circulate and produce social value for individuals and organisations.

Biographic Characteristics and Factors Perceived as Affecting Female and Male Careers in Academic Surgery: The Tenured Gender Battle to Make It to the Top.

PURPOSE: Given the high attrition rate in the field of academic surgery, we aimed to characterise the professional and personal situations of female and male academic surgeons as well as to gather data on their respective perceptions of career advancement and work satisfaction. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional survey in Germany, inviting all identifiable academically highly qualified female surgeons and their male counterparts in a 1:2 ratio to participate. An anonymous 103-item online questionnaire was designed and the data collected between July and September 2014. RESULTS: The questionnaire was sent to 93 female and 200 male surgeons, of whom 63 women (67.7%) and 70 men (35.0%) replied. The average age was 47.5 and 47.1 years, respectively. Respondents identified 'high degree of expertise', 'ambition', and 'clarity of one's professional aims' as important factors affecting professional career development. Both groups felt 'workload', 'working hours/shifts', and 'gender' to be a hindrance, the latter of significantly greater importance to female surgeons. The mean work satisfaction scores were high in both female (69.5%) and male (75.7%) surgeons. The predictors 'support from superiors' (standardised ß coefficient = 0.41) and 'manual aptitude' (ß = 0.41) contributed incrementally to the variance in 'high degree of work satisfaction' (90-100%) observed for female surgeons. However, childcare provided by 'kindergarten/crèche/after-school care' had the greatest negative predictive value (ß = -1.33). CONCLUSIONS: Although there are many parallels, female faculty members experience the culture of academic surgery to some extent differently from their male counterparts, especially when impacted by parenthood and childcare. Faculty development programmes need to develop strategies to improve perceived equality in career opportunities by respecting individuals' requirements as well as offering gender-appropriate career guidance.

An analysis of obituaries in staff magazines.

In the literature, extensive attention is given to the content, structure, and style of obituaries in newspapers. Analyses of the demise of colleagues in internal business communications are however nonexistent. This article discusses a bottom-up analysis of 150 obituaries published in Flemish staff magazines--obituaries that mostly focus on the deceased's career and professional qualities. Following analysis, the data were divided in obituaries that are continuous texts and obituaries with a letter format. The differences between the two types lie at different levels: format, content, structure, and language use. Obituaries with a letter format are characterized and determined by three paradoxes: the sender-receiver paradox, life-death paradox, and happiness-sadness paradox.

Garland Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, and Development.

Garland E. Allen's 1978 biography of the Nobel Prize winning biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan provides an excellent study of the man and his science. Allen presents Morgan as an opportunistic scientist who follows where his observations take him, leading him to his foundational work in Drosophila genetics. The book was rightfully hailed as an important achievement and it introduced generations of readers to Morgan. Yet, in hindsight, Allen's book largely misses an equally important part of Morgan's work - his study of development and regeneration. It is worth returning to this part of Morgan, exploring what Morgan contributed and also why he has been seen by contemporaries and historians such as Allen as having set aside some of the most important developmental problems. A closer look shows how Morgan's view of cells and development that was different from that of his most noted contemporaries led to interpretation of his important contributions in favor of genetics. This essay is part of a special issue, revisiting Garland Allen's views on the history of life sciences in the twentieth century.

Are elite cricketers more prone to suicide? A psychological autopsy study of Test cricketer suicides.

OBJECTIVES: It has been hypothesised that the very nature of the game predisposes elite cricketers to higher rates of suicide. AIM: We aim to estimate the suicide rate of male Test cricketers and to determine the reasons for suicide. METHODS: The suicide rate in male Test cricketers was determined. A psychological autopsy was conducted using published biographical data. RESULTS: Twenty suicides amongst 2794 male Test cricketers from 1877 to 2014 yielded a suicide rate of 715.4 per 100,000 for that period. Health, financial and relationship issues were prominent; depression and alcohol misuse were common. CONCLUSIONS: Most suicides in Test cricketers occurred post-retirement in mid to late life with similar correlates to those found in the general male population. The idiosyncrasies of cricket are unlikely to contribute to suicide; however, the post-retirement welfare of Test cricketers should remain a focus of concern and the greater supports available to contemporary Test cricketers needs to extend beyond retirement.

Patients' preferences for family medicine physicians' video biographies.

No studies have assessed prospective patients' opinions regarding physician introductory videos despite their increasing prevalence. Therefore, a within-subjects experiment randomly exposed participants to five physician video biographies featuring primarily either personal or professional information. Participants' attitudes were measured. They also selected the physician they would want to visit. Participants chose physicians with whom they perceived the greatest similarity, and indicated greater ease choosing physicians when exposed to biographies containing personal information. Future videos should be between 60 and 90 seconds. Participants appreciated videos' abilities to show physicians' personalities. Participants also stated what else they would like to see included in future videos.