The St. James Infirmary: A history

St. James Infirmary (SJI), located in San Francisco, California is a peer-led occupational health and safety clinic for sex workers that opened on June 2, 1999. This reserch looks at the political and cultural events that led to the creation of this unique clinic. I will draw from the research I conducted, inclusive of one-on-one interviews with leaders of the organizations that came together to form St. James Infirmary, a review of archival material, and an exploration of the preexisting literature on sex workers rights movements and social rights movements to tell the story of SJI. The existence of the Infirmary results in an acknowledgement that sex work is a legitimate occupation. It also challenges cultural values and political institutions, and creates a community for sex workers.     

The value history: A necessary family document

Patients' wishes regarding health care and dying must be taken into consideration by their physicians. Competent patients need to record directives about their care in advance of a crisis situation. The primary care physician, seeing the patient at the time of a routine office visit, is in a favorable position to explore and record attitudes. A patient's value system should be part of a medical history before hospital admission. Details in a Value History Questionnaire facilitate guiding an incompetent patient through a terminal illness in accordance with wishes previously expressed. An instrument in the form of a questionnaire was designed to record the attitudes of 200 patients regarding health care and dying. Respondents ranged in age from 17 to 84 years, and all were members of one family practice. They reacted positively to the opportunity to record their values, opinions, and wishes about their health care and process of dying. They clearly indicated that, in the absence of prior directives, they would want their families consulted about crucial decisions.     

The donor is in the details

Recent research finds that people respond more generously to individual victims described in detail than to equivalent statistical victims described in general terms. We propose that this “identified victim effect” is one manifestation of a more general phenomenon: a positive influence of tangible information on generosity. In three experiments, we find evidence for an “identified intervention effect”; providing tangible details about a charity’s interventions significantly increases donations to that charity. Although previous work described sympathy as the primary mediator between tangible information and giving, current mediational analyses show that the influence of tangible details can operate through donors’ perception that their contribution will have impact. Taken together with past work, the results suggest that tangible information of many types promotes generosity and can do so either via sympathy or via perceived impact. The ability of tangible information to increase impact points to new ways for charities to encourage generosity.     

The ascent of money: A financial history of the world

The Psychological Record -