Vaidehi Kathana

Writing the Self in Illness: Reading the Experiential Through the Medical Memoir is MUP?s refreshing venture into the developing fields of Medical and Health Humanities with an aim to consider the necessity of the narrative knowledge as complementary to the contemporary notions of well-being, illness, and healthcare.

Is individual happiness contingent on health and well-being? How does one find happiness in the throes of illness? In the present-day scenario, wherein medical practice is largely dominated by evidence-based understanding, diagnostic language, and problem-solving methods, the discipline of Medical Humanities emerges with a reciprocal dialogue between Humanities, Social Sciences, Health, and Medicine. The study of varied experiential narratives ? literary works and unmediated accounts of patients and healthcare professionals, is foregrounded in Medical Humanities to amplify knowledge and understanding about the complexity of encounters with illness and their transformational quality in a nuanced manner. Both thought-provoking and informative, this publication brings about the anecdotal form of personal narratives in the light of medical discourses along with the specific cultural context of the narrative.
The present publication seeks to be an important reading for students and academics in the field of medical humanities, health professionals or medical practitioners, as well as scholars aspiring to venture into this flourishing field.

COVID-19 disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, first detected in November-December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Thus far, more than 7 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus across the globe, and the count is increasing with every passing day. Even though it causes severe respiratory problems, the majority of patients show mild symptoms, and pathogenesis is under investigation. Although several drugs are being developed and many of them are undergoing clinical trials, currently there are no approved drugs/vaccines to cure this disease. Personal hygiene and social distancing are important means to prevent the spread of this disease. With the advancements in scientific research, humankind is hoping to find a potent drug/vaccine for this disease at the earliest. The health care professionals and scientific community are at their maximum in combating this viral infection. In this book, an attempt is made to compile various aspects of COVID-19 in a single platform, which include aetiology, epidemiology, its clinical manifestations, diagnosis, pathological, clinical and therapeutic facets, comorbidities, risk factors, and the essential precautionary measures. This book comprises around 29 chapters contributed by various experts from research and clinical backgrounds.