Clinical Photography in Norway
September 18, 2016 § Leave a comment
Fellow medical photographer Bård Kjersem and I have written an article about the history and current practice of clinical photography at our departments at Rikshospitalet (the National Hospital) in Oslo and Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen.
The article is published in Norwegian in the Michael Quarterly journal (open access) of the Norwegian Medical Society. Read it here.
For foreign readers there is an automatic (and sadly not very good) English translation available here.
Early medical photography reenacted
April 19, 2015 § Leave a comment
Last weekend I attended the Norwegian Institutional Photographer’s annual conference in Bergen. The most interesting happening was a reenactment of what must be one of the first instances of standardized medical photography in Norway.
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Medical Photographer, 1978
February 2, 2012 § Leave a comment
Browsing through some old hospital newsletters, I found an article on cesarean sections and noticed a photographer in one of the photos. Being a photography section we typically don’t have many photos of ourselves at work, so I dived into our negative archive in hope of locating the shoot. « Read the rest of this entry »
Blood and guts on BBC
August 19, 2008 § 6 Comments
A new five-part series on the history of surgery starts on BBC Four this Wednesday (photo credit). Titled “Blood and Guts”, the series chronicles the development of trauma, transplant, cosmetic, heart and brain surgery, tracing the steps from the cutting edge operations of today back to their beginnings. « Read the rest of this entry »
The Making of Modern Medicine
March 28, 2008 § Leave a comment
I’ve just finished listening to the BBC Radio series “The Making of Modern Medicine”. A total of 30 programmes about the development of medicine from the ancient Greece to the scientific medicine of today. « Read the rest of this entry »
Medical mavericks
March 11, 2008 § 4 Comments

Last night I watched the first episode of the BBC miniseries “Medical mavericks” (photo credit). It tells the story of important breakthroughs in medical history by focusing on doctors and scientists that used themselves as guinea pigs. « Read the rest of this entry »
The Alarming History of Medicine
January 2, 2008 § 2 Comments
I’ve just finished reading The Alarming History of Medicine by Richard Gordon. Popping up as a suggestion when ordering some other books, I guess this line from the back cover sold it:
Using hilarious stories, based on actual facts, Richard Gordon shows that most of the monumental discoveries [in medicine] were originally accidents.
Surgical history
November 19, 2007 § Leave a comment
I’m very fascinated with surgery. When you spend a lot of time in operating rooms I guess you can’t help getting either nauseated or fascinated by the craft.
One of the most fascinating aspects of surgery is its history. Some of the operations that’s still around today, were also conducted several hundred years ago. One of the most ancients operations we know about is the removal of bladder stones. The oldest bladder stone specimen found is dated at about 4800 BC. « Read the rest of this entry »