How to Use This Site

Welcome to Medical Humanities! #

This website is a central location for the syllabus, readings, calendar, and submitting assignments.

Account #

In order to access the part of the website that allows you to submit assignments, you’ll need to have been invited. If you think you should have been invited, and haven’t been, please contact one of the administrators.

Once you have an account, click “Login.” It should give you several options to authenticate, including email/password, Google, and GitHub. We recommend getting a GitHub account, as it is free and will allow you to post comments, but this is optional.

After you’ve been logged in, you will see a dashboard.

Your first action should be to make yourself a profile, using the “Person” collection on the left. It includes a default picture, but feel free to upload your own or link to one online (e.g. right click and “Copy Image Address” for your profile picture on the hospital website).

Once you’ve made a profile and it’s been approved, you’ll be automatically added to the People section of the website.

Writing assignments #

Go to the “Assignment” collection and click “New.” You should be able to find yourself in the “Author” dropdown - if you can’t, it is likely because the administrators have not yet authorized the Person profile you just created. Let them know you’re ready to go.

Then fill out the rest of the fields. You can copy and paste your assignment in from whatever text editor you like, but may have to adjust formatting. One easy way to prevent Word/Google Docs/etc. from doing strange things to your text is to paste it into TextEdit (Mac) or Notepad (Windows) first, then copy and paste it from there into the entry box (this trick works on most software, as it strips out the formatting - it does wonders for pasting into CPRS).

If you would like to password protect your entry, make sure to click the toggle.

You can also upload or link to an image, if you would like. Make sure it’s something you took yourself, or in the public domain (e.g. from one of these sites).

Comments #

All posts have a comments section at the bottom. Commenting requires a GitHub account. We used this system because all other free commenting systems that do not require a server use an immoral amount of tracking and analytics. Because the source code that stores the entries and runs the website lives in a private repository, comments are not yet able to be linked to each post specifically. Instead, there is one running discussion for all public posts, and another running discussion for all posts that require a password. Because of that, if you choose to comment, please reference the post you’re referring to (a link or @theAuthor would suffice).

Privacy #

Since this site lives on the open internet, we have implemented several features to keep you and our patients safe and able to exert control over privacy.

The first level of protection is to not write anything that violates HIPAA. It is more than ok to fudge identifying details and generalize, or combine several patient stories into one, as you process your experiences and make your art.

Two key technological features are the requirement that all posts be approved before going live (this has the added benefit of making it less likely that you’ll accidentally delete someone else’s post), and the ability to encrypt and password protect any assignment that you do not want to make available for public consumption (contact the administration for the password - you do not need it to write the assignment, but will need it to view the assignment on the website later; you can also always view your post after logging in).

Because this site is built using all free services, and is not backed by a server, we are unable to prevent logged in users from seeing each other’s work. In addition to being a necessity, this is by design, because the course is meant to be an open forum within each cohort. However, if you have writing you would like to keep between you and the instructors only, please instead email your submissions directly.

Contributing to the site itself #

This site is built using all free software (in both senses of the word - free as in t-shirts and free as in freedom), is locally built and self-maintained, with source code on GitHub, and runs on Netlify’s free tier. Please reach out to the administrators with comments and suggestions. If you have a programming background and would like to contribute (or would like to learn!), also reach out.