I reviewed Hamnet (Maggie O'Farrell) for @bmj.com. Chloé Zhao's film is sweeping awards season. Not without criticism – many have found it too weepy & criticize its use of “cheat codes” like Max Richter’s score. But I see in Hamnet’s pathos something else – remembrance, our collective aftermath.

Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased To find a nation of such barbarous temper, That, breaking out in hideous violence, Would not afford you an abode on earth, .... This is the strangers’ case; And this your mountainish inhumanity.

An extraordinary paragraph. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Kim Stanley Robinson’s "The Ministry for the Future" is a book about decisions that determine not just who lives and dies now, but who will live and die in the future. Lakshmi Krishnan sets the scene for our first issue of 2026 www.bmj.com/content/392/...

Honored to be part of @bmj.com New Year’s Resolutions for the #climateemergency issue, kicking off 2026 with an exploration of Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future See @kamranabbasi.bsky.social's editorial & my piece below: tinyurl.com/4b2efbjj www.bmj.com/content/392/...

Summary of what happened at Temu ACIP this morning: As expected, they overturned the 30+ year recommendation for the birth dose of HepB vaccine, which has reduced the incidence of pediatric HepB by 99%. They provided no credible evidence to support this decision.

Excited to share new work first authored by Georgetown medical student Sweta Ghatti, comparing how medical humanities vs. empirical research approaches health disparities in DC. Congrats to our entire author team: Christopher King @charlescott.bsky.social, Xue Geng www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"For this reason I shall probably be called a trimmer by some and a sentimental extremist by others. But poetry in my opinion must be honest before anything else and I refuse to be ‘objective ’ or clear-cut at the cost of honesty." Louis MacNeice, Note Autumn Journal, 1939.

RFK JR: "We're doing the studies to make the proof." Saying the quiet part out loud.

I sat down with @vinayakjain.bsky.social & Kayla Zamanian to talk about our new piece in @jama.com & why the humanities & social sciences are fundamental to health research and innovation. Check out the article: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... drlakshmikrishnan.substack.com/p/the-new-cl...

I can't believe acetaminophen is main character right now

"Let's boil this down: AI for back office and admin tasks? Yes. AI for diagnostics and training? Perhaps, but we need to understand the impact on patient care." @kamranabbasi.bsky.social on the future of medicine www.bmj.com/content/389/...

This is great! Looking forward to reading. Bridging this gap is what Indigenous scholars have been advocating for decades: calling for recognition of the value and legitimacy of bridging methodologies across disciplines AND worldviews to answer complex health questions.

Mira por donde, siempre he pensado que soy un bicho raro y resulta que ahora sale en el JAMA que no es tan malo ser de ciencias y letras a la vez, cuando te dedicas a la medicina

Sure, I’m biased, but it’s amazing how often my Linguistics background is relevant or adds context.

Excited to share our @jama.com Viewpoint on dual-trained clinician-scholars in medicine & humanities. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... #medicalhumanities #healthhumanities (1)

Always a treat to have @profgoldberg.bsky.social's take!

Masks serve both power & resistance. ICE agents mask to avoid accountability or, if we take them at face value, protect themselves. Protesters mask to subvert surveillance. We wear them voluntarily & through compulsion. We hide behind masks, we survive through masks. My latest: tinyurl.com/vpyfdzjs

A thing that is good and safe and wholesome and fair in a world that is anything but Cannot bear the news but popping onto the sky of blue to say: donate to DCPL here www.dclibrary.org/get-involved...

As always, @thelakshmik.bsky.social blows my mind with her excellent analysis. Perfect example of how #histmed & #medhum impact health policy (& culture) today. Checkout her latest post: drlakshmikrishnan.substack.com/p/there-once...

Vaccine skepticism used to be more grassroots; it's now fortified with federal power. Check out my new post on RFK’s clean sweep. drlakshmikrishnan.substack.com/p/a-clean-sw...

IT'S OUT!

"Don't pick up your binoculars 🦅 unless you know what you're looking at." What watching THE RESIDENCE revealed abt the connections between birdwatching, microscopes, & medicine -- & what we do with our attention My first Substack is live! Please read & subscribe to The Workup tinyurl.com/mnr2wapw

📊 Our new paper introduces the "diagnostic environment" model: 🌫️ Atmospheric: Societal factors 👥 Surface: Healthcare interactions 🔍 Subterranean: Hidden structures / norms Now out in #BMJOpenQuality @bmj.com! ⬇️ bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/14/2... (1)

Just published! 📊 Thrilled to see our findings from the @nationalacademies.org workshop on "Advancing Equity in Diagnostic Excellence to Reduce Health Disparities" now available. Download the proceedings brief: nap.edu/28573 #HealthEquity #DiagnosticExcellence

Quieting the noise for a sec to spotlight a colleague, wise woman, scholar-leader par excellence, a very great writer and an even better friend @danaawilliams.bsky.social. Pre-order Toni at Random NOW! www.amazon.com/Toni-Random-...

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite. - Joy Harjo, Perhaps The World Ends Here

Join us Monday, Feb. 10, 3:00 PM - Annual Carlton Haywood, Jr, PhD Memorial Symposium. Keynote - Keith Wailoo, PhD, "Sickle Cell Disease – A History of Peril and Progress" - w panel Lydia Pecker, Yoram Unguru, Teonna Woolford. Open to all. Link for free registration: mailchi.mp/jhu/registra...

Cool to see my piece on diagnosis and AI out @statnews.com. Thanks @thekibosch.bsky.social for brilliant editing.

Event, Jan 31, 2025, 5p | Rx: Conversations about Medicine and Writing, featuring Lenny Grant and Lakshmi Krishnan, and moderated by JHU’s own Jeremy Greene. Open to all. Link for free registration: forms.office.com/pages/respon...

NAVSA 2025 now open for submissions! (Deadline 3/17) Please reach out to me or our brilliant digital genius @lindseyeroneil.bsky.social with any questions at all 💜

The fact that NIH grant-making has been switched off so haphazardly, for reasons that remain unclear, and despite the scope of troubles it creates, suggests that higher ed will be profoundly vulnerable during the second Trump era, writes @ibogost.bsky.social: theatln.tc/e1Ng2ddw

Migrated from Twitter. Literary scholar by training, physician by trade, friend of history, and believer that poetry might be the only thing that saves us. Following #medicalhumanities, #historyofmedicine, #poets, and #medsky

(Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever Hand from hand, as we stand by the sea) A.C. Swinburne, The Triumph of Time

Overheard: A bookish 7 year old arrives in the town library and standing on his toes demands to check out the book called "Ibid." which, he says loudly, "is cited by all kinds of primary sources" and his little fist lands on the library counter in satisfaction.

I wrote a thing, because these fires are in the increasingly common category of shocking but not surprising. Neither unprecedented nor unforeseen by those who study the subjects..... www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It is difficult to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there - William Carlos Williams, Asphodel, That Greeny Flower

I continue to be deeply moved by this statement to the heavens by President Carter.

Delighted to share my new @bmj.com piece exploring literature's long history of environmental health warnings - climate fiction before "cli-fi" From Gaskell's industrial smog to Butler's climate futures, lit. offers special insights into our planetary health crisis. 🔗 bmj.com/content/387/bmj.q2583

If you have access to @bmj.com, check out this timeless list of Climate Fiction provided by @thelakshmik.bsky.social. There are a few that I still need to read! doi.org/10.1136/bmj....

1/2 Baudelaire: "It is much easier to declare that everything in the garments of a period is absolutely ugly than to apply oneself to the extraction of the mysterious beauty which they contain.”

Still marveling at how wholesome #onhere is

Altho it's been out in the world, today is the official publication day for my book!!! The title indicates it's a book about concussion and American tackle football, which is true, but really this is a book about regulated industries' use of the #ManufactureOfDoubt in ways that harm public health.

Tfw a student at your uni writes a letter to the editor defending the humanities. www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/o...

Thanks Georgetown Medical Humanities for inviting Cindy Ermus, Mari Webel and me to discuss the history of colonialism & medicine. John McNeil was our chair & Lakshmi Krishnan & Tim Newfield were the organizers.

Great to join the @bmj.com Medicine & Science pod talking about climate fiction and health w/ Howie Frumkin, Sarah Grossman, & @kamranabbasi.bsky.social #medhum #clifi #climatechange thebmjpodcast.podbean.com/e/climate-le...

What a set of talks it was! @cindyermus.bsky.social Mari Webel @jimdowns.bsky.social Tim Newfield John McNeill #historyofpublichealth #historyofmedicine #medicalhumanities