Author information from the last article
Erlend Hem, head of the Institute for Studies of the Medical Profession and professor at the University of Oslo
The author has completed the ICMJE form and declares no conflicts of interest.
Articles by Erlend Hem
What is burnout?
- Mari Asphjell Bjørnaas,
- Erlend Hem,
- Karin Isaksson Rø
23.06.2026:
Burnout among doctors is concerning for their health and patient care, but the term is imprecise and lacks a universally agreed definition. Greater clarity is needed in order to understand burnout in a meaningful way. In recent years, various international studies have shown a high prevalence of...
Confined to a lunatic asylum for eleven years: the case of Haaken Bergh
- Petter Aaslestad,
- Erlend Hem
23.06.2026:
Haaken Bergh (1870–1939) spent a total of eleven years, between 1903 and 1921, in four psychiatric institutions in Sweden and Norway. After more than eight years at Dikemark Asylum in Norway, he was discharged in 1921. He spent the rest of his life seeking redress for the injustices he believed he...
Determining paternity before DNA – the significance of pregnancy duration
- Per E. Børdahl,
- Erlend Hem
04.06.2026:
As late as the 1980s, some maternity wards still hung a board above mothers' beds, with a chart showing the patient's temperature, pulse and the letter V or S. V stood for vera (true), indicating that the child was born in wedlock, while S for spuria (false) meant that the child had been born out of...
Vanitas – on borrowed time
- Erlend Hem
19.03.2026:
Skulls in art remind us that nothing lasts forever. The Netherlands' national museum, Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam (1) is home to several dozen works featuring the skull as a motif (2). For doctors, the skull is primarily an anatomical object: the bony structure that protects the brain and shapes the...
The patient's voice and the writer's role in mental health records
- Petter Aaslestad,
- Marion Cecilie Andrade Bakke,
- Petter Andreas Ringen,
- Erlend Hem
18.03.2026:
'Things are stored, but not remembered. […] You store in order to forget.' Geir Angell Øygarden: Kentauromakhi (1) Patient records have seldom been the subject of scholarly study (2). An important exception is the first author's book Pasienten som tekst (the patient as text), published in 1997 (3)...
When penicillin came to Norway
- Anne Margrethe Aalborg Wiik,
- Erlend Hem,
- Anne Kveim Lie
08.01.2026:
Alexander Fleming's (1881–1955) discovery of penicillin in 1928, and its subsequent testing and mass production by Howard Florey (1898–1968) and Ernst Chain (1906–79) in collaboration with the United States' pharmaceutical industry, represent some of the most important milestones in medical history...
How has pregnancy duration been determined throughout history?
- Per E. Børdahl,
- Erlend Hem
17.12.2025:
The end of pregnancy can be recorded with precision, but determining when it started is more challenging. Should it be calculated from the intercourse that led to fertilisation, from ovulation, from fertilisation itself, or from implantation? In any case, pregnancy does not actually begin on the...
Correction: Ibsen's wallet – an insight into the poet's prescriptions
- Erlend Hem,
- Jan Frich
01.12.2025:
Tidsskr Nor Legeforen 2025; 145. doi: 10.4045/tidsskr.24.0526 The image text for the last image should say: (…) Pictured here at Arbins gate 1 in 1898. Photo: Hulda Szacinski (1845–1922). In public ownership through the National Library of Norway. (Updated 1.12.2025)