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Patient’s voice has become louder in recent years. It is a statement of illness, disability, near-death experience, and a cry from the weak, which reveals rich and multiple aspects of patient's physical diseases and mental pain. The groans of patients should not only be treated as reference for decision-making in clinical diagnosis and treatment, but need to be marked down as a voice of the weak in the history of medicine. However, the reality is this voice often stays as physician’s medical records than writings in history of medicine. The mainstream of medical history focuses on how doctors cure diseases, while ignores the role of patients. At times in history of medicine, it was patient’s illness challenged traditional medical theories, provided new perspectives to diagnosis and treatment, and corrected mistakes and prejudice of physicians. Yet, patients benefited very little in the process. Although a few patients miraculously recovered, more became experimental subjects and victims of medicine (Perino L. Patients Zéro: Histoires inversées de la médecine (Chinese edition). France: La Découverte; 2020). Tracing the change of the understanding on patient subjectivity in history of medicine, this paper aims to call for a rise of history of medicine centered on patients.

Objectives Factors that influence career success play an important role in nurse’s professional development and clinical nursing management quality. However, limited studies have explored such factors from the perspective of social and psychological capital (PsyCap). This study explores the relationship between Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) and PsyCap and career success among Chinese clinical nurses. Methods A cross-sectional design with convenience sampling was employed. We recruited 1,221 nurses from two hospitals of Hebei Province, China. The average age of the participants was 30.94 years (SD=6.28; range, 19–56 years), and 95.6 % were female. The participants were surveyed using the Leader–Member Exchange Questionnaire, Psychological Capital Questionnaire, and Career Success Questionnaire. We used Student’s t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson’s correlation analysis, and structural equation modeling to analyze the data. Results Career success was significantly correlated with LMX and PsyCap and its four dimensions: self-efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism. LMX was significantly and positively correlated with PsyCap and its four dimensions. Furthermore, LMX positively predicted PsyCap, and PsyCap positively predicted career success. Moreover, PsyCap mediated the relationship between LMX and career success. Conclusions LMX (as social capital) and PsyCap influence the career success of Chinese clinical nurses.

Objectives This study aims to explore the unintended consequences of the COVID-19 lockdown in Argentina by assessing sleep disorders developed during quarantine and analyzing the interplay between gender and social gradients of health with sleep disorders. Methods The study adopted a cross-sectional design by drawing data from the Argentinian Social Debt The study adopted a cross-sectional design by drawing data from the Argentinian Social Debt COVID-19 Survey (n=500) carried out in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires in May 2020. COVID-19 survey (n=500) carried out in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires in May 2020. Descriptive and correlational analyses were carried out using SPSS (version 25) to describe the occurrence of sleep disorders produced during quarantine. Results The results show that during lockdown the local population presented a lower quality of sleep. Among the analysed groups, women and the youngest group were the most affected (p<0.005). Furthermore, although the four socioeconomic groups examined in this study have all suffered sleep disorders during lockdown, the respondents with lower socioeconomic status are found to have been more affected than the others. Conclusions The correlational analysis indicates that a lower socio-occupational stratum corresponds to a higher degree of changes in the circadian rhythm during the lockdown period. The main contribution of this study lies in illustrating, from a local perspective, one aspect of the unintended consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns on sleep health. Additionally, it serves to inform local health policies about the importance of considering human health as an integral process, without prioritizing the biological sphere over other aspects.

This study examines the variations within Asia of how Article 27.3(a) of the WTO Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement), allowing Parties to remove from patentability diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical methods for the treatment of humans and animals, is implemented. The medical treatment exclusion is one of several important provisions in the TRIPS Agreement that are designed to support domestic public health objectives and countries’ overall scientific and technological aspirations. Examples of this exclusion in the respective patent policies of South, Southeast and East Asia countries and territories are examined, and peculiarities in the variations among countries in these sub-regions are identified. While most jurisdictions in the data set incorporated some form of a medical treatment exclusion, variations were found in how the exclusion is implemented, the rationale given for excluding medical treatments, and the scope of the exclusion.

Objectives This paper examines end-of-life care communication and decision-making in mainland China by exploring their connection with filial piety and the concealment of medical information from patients by their families. Methods A textual analysis was performed by utilizing descriptive information from 349 semi-structured interviews with family and professional caregivers between 2021 and 2023 in 15 Chinese provinces. In addition to a word search for filial piety and the concealment of medical information from patients by their families, this study features seven personal accounts. Results Of all the interviews, 26.9 % (303 mentions) and 11.7 % (86 mentions) contain statements about filial piety and the concealment of medical information, respectively. The interviews suggest that the autonomy of elderly patients is suspended when disclosure of medical information and decisions for end-of-life care are controlled by family members – in particular, adult children out of a strong sense of filial piety. Conclusions The authors recommend advance care planning (ACP) as a structured approach to discussing the patient’s care preferences near the end of life. In China, relational autonomy is a key to such approach, with culturally sensitive dialogues toward building a consensus among patients, relatives, and medical staff. Only then could end-of-life care place individual agency on par with family responsibility motivated by filial piety. China can look to other Asian countries and territories for family-centered ACP experiences in embracing the inseparable role of family in end-of-life care decisions to guide its implementation of the recent Shenzhen legislation and more patient-oriented practices going forward.

Objectives This paper takes the folk stories of ancient Chinese medicinal herbs as the research object, aiming at depicting the understanding of the relationship between human beings and nature, spiritual beings and immortals in the conceptual world of Chinese people. Methods Morphological research method is adopted to focus on the text of folk stories and relevant cultural significance. Results Since the Tang Dynasty, the records about medicinal herbs becoming spiritual beings and people becoming immortals after consuming them have been widely spread. Among them, three types of stories are the most representative: one is ginseng transforming into an old man or a boy, the other one is tuckahoe transforming into a child, and the last one is the Chinese wolfberry transforming into a dog. Conclusions The story of “consuming spiritual beings and becoming immortals” not only reveals the narrative rules of the orderly upgrading from low to high among plants, spiritual beings, human beings, and immortals but also reflects our ancestors' ultimate pursuit of longevity and becoming immortals. Relevant research on this topic could be beneficial to the presentation of the knowledge-generating process of the Chinese ancient folk culture and promote the theoretical construction of Chinese stories.

Objectives In Mainland China, Hospice and Palliative Care are making significant progress; and meanwhile, Narrative Medicine is going through a process of localization in both theory and practice. Since the integration of the two areas in medicine, it is worth exploring practice on narrative palliative care more deeply. Methods Some of the authors have been collecting teaching cases in several cities by the research methods of anthropology (participant observation, in-depth interview and visual ethnography). Results Based on presenting a case and teaching feedback, this paper tries to show our effort in promoting and integrating Narrative Medicine education into the field of Palliative Care practice. And then we would try to explain it from two perspectives. Conclusions The work of education, research and clinical practice on narrative medicine in hospice and palliative care, can help us make sense of the end of life and especially help those medical students become capable of seeing the suffering around them in medical training.

Narrative is one of the best intoxicants or tranquilizers for people in pain and in terminal illness. In this article, we explore the role of narrative in hospice doula practice and the important care that the narrative doula can offer to better the experience of death and dying through the theoretical framework of narrative medicine. By sharing our experience of imbuing narrative medicine in hospice care in China, we exemplify how hospice narrative doulas can help people at the end-of-life and their loved ones to fulfil the ritual of their whole-life narrative integration for the purpose of better tackling the challenges brought by imminent death such as the communication breakdown, the disruption of interpersonal narrative connectedness and the feeling of premature grief. Hospice narrative doula thus can help them confront death without innermost pain and achieve a good and dignified death.

The transmission rate of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is significantly increasing in Pakistan, which amounts to the second most rapid spread in Asia. In early 2019, the media reported on a HIV outbreak in the Taluka (sub-district) of Ratodero, located in the Larkana district of Pakistan’s Sindh province. In just one village, approximately 1,150 cases were diagnosed. Unfortunately, most of them were children. The outbreak, on the one hand, is a result of a conjuncture of local, national, and global economic and political inequalities. On the other hand, it is multiplying the adverse consequences for the economically and politically marginalized segments of society, such as children and women. This paper proposes strategies to address the outbreak and provides model questions for studying it. Outbreaks such as HIV pose a significant challenge to human existence. They require specific attention at different levels in order to be dealt with effectively. They require studies to examine the crucial role of sociocultural, economic and political factors in their origin and prevalence as well as the impact of sociocultural differences on the outcome.