Coming up soon, the organisers of this conference, ‘Thinking about Health’, promise a different kind of conference: small, participative, interdisciplinary, and aimed at users, professionals and academics. It will explore the changing nature of roles and relationships in the NHS and their implications, focussing on the implications of change for the integrity and identity of individuals, professions and organisations.

The conference aims to address questions like does integrity mean anything in the contemporary NHS; is the nature of integrity, individual and corporate, changing; and how can integrity be exemplified and encouraged by policy makers, professionals and users?

Alongside plenary presentations, there will be structured, small group discussions and short contributions by practitioners and users to ensure discussion is earthed in the everyday life of the NHS. A final plenary will draw together the issues discussed, with a panel of leaders from academic disciplines and health care professions.

This is the third event organised by Think About Health. For more about the network see www.thinkabouthealth.org

To join Think About Health or to learn more about the conference contact J Calinas: jcalinas@thinkabouthealth.org

There’s an old adage in medicine that if being with a patient makes you feel depressed then there’s a good chance that person is themselves depressed. So how does this painting make you feel? Depressed, or hopeful? Safe, or vulnerable? Alone, or observed? more…

If you want to refresh your memory of the comings and goings in Geroge Eliot’s classic, Middlemarch, then look no further than Professor Rosin’s analysis in the June 2009 issue of Medical Humanities.

http://mh.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/35/1/43?q=w_mh_current_tab

If you want to follow a contemporary equivalent of medical marketplace machinations then you need look no further than what is currently happening to general practice in England and Wales. And specifically to the Orwellian world in which carers and cared for find themselves. A world where government announcements to the national news media of the universal introduction of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy are followed by the systematic reduction of mental health care services in primary care. In my own practice, in the past 6 months, first the PCT provided mental health care worker was removed and more recently the practice counsellor of 17 years standing was ‘let go’. But hey ho, never mind, NICE guidance has after all told us what to do: if a patient is suitable for CBT and it isn’t available (!) we can (and should) tell them to ‘hang on’. more…

So how are you coping? Are you managing to make the right choices in these difficult times? And what if you make the wrong decision? Do you worry you might be sued, or worse still that the care people receive will suffer? And no, I’m not talking about the stresses and strains of clinical practice, pressing as these can be in an ever litigious society. Nor am I referring to widespread anxieties about rising unemployment, including medical. Instead I’m talking about the admittedly niche ethics angst that is part and parcel of a modern journal editor’s lot. more…

So where do you go, bedsides straight to our very own journal, website and blog, if you’re a clinician, educator or academic in the UK and Ireland with an interest, or even just a fledgling curiosity, about medical humanities?

To the Association of Medical Humanities of course. Following this link to the Association’s website to find out more. And why not join up? The more the merrier!

http://www.amh.ac.uk

Helen Garner’s The Spare Room (published by Canongate) is an exploration of the emotional and practical turmoil engendered by caring for someone who is grasping at straws to evade the terminal truth of their illness.

The narrative probes a friendship between two feisty women when it is taken to new levels of intensity by a clash in ideology. Helen (who deliberately shares the author’s name) starts off with noble intentions. She prepares her spare room with due consideration for longstanding-friend Nicola’s feng shui inclinations, hoping to strike just the right balance between practicality and homeliness. Nicola, riven with cancer, is coming to Sydney to spend a small fortune on alternative therapy at the Theodore Institute. Predictably, the Institute proves fantastically adept at sales talk but medically deeply dubious. Nicola emerges from intravenous Vitamin C treatment and ozone cupping weakened and wracked with excruciating pain, but she holds out against morphine until she – and, more particularly, Helen – can bear it no longer. Nicola is coaxed into reengaging with orthodox medicine by her outraged and exhausted friend. more…

In these uncertain economic times there seems to be a growing nostalgia for the more simple things in life. Home baking and dressmaking is on the rise and many families are anticipating a less commercialised festive get together. Although some of this return to basics is undoubtedly driven by economic imperatives, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that this enforced trip down memory lane can be strangely comforting. 

Which might, in part, explain the increasing appeal that comics or graphic novels have for grown-ups as well as children. In this posting Dr Ian Williams explains how far from being “just for kids”, graphic novels can actually be good for everyone’s health. His posting not only makes interesting reading but also provides a handy excuse over the holiday season to Simpson’s fans around the world. 

One last thing: Ian Williams can, alas, accept no responsibility for any enjoyable moments or unanticipated sniggers experienced by visitors to the site. These are strictly unintentional. Remember, fellow professionals: this is work, not play.

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I’m grateful to Christy Henshaw for letting me know about an exciting new project from the Wellcome Trust. So far about 100 films from the Trust’s vast archive of film and video have been digitalised and can be viewed by anyone, free-of-charge, on-line. 

A brief glance at the titles led me to a fascinating insight into how the British Medical Association, in 1967, tried to engage with the public about growing concerns regarding childhood obesity. The way in which the issue of childhood obesity is framed in the film- including the language used and the overt and unashamed signaling that allowing a child to be fat both stigmatises them and threatens their health- will surely enrich the thinking of contemporary medical humanities scholars interested in the so-called obesity epidemic.

To see this clip click on the link below.

Cruel Kindness

The list of available titles in the Wellcome Library Catalogue can be seen by following the link below. This resource will shortly be available via Flash Player which should make access easier.

http://catalogue.wellcome.ac.uk/search/a?searchtype=Y&searcharg=electronic+resource&SORT=D&searchscope=3&submit.x=30&submit.y=14

Full details, from Christy, follow.

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One of the most powerful teaching tools available to educators is- for me- art. And one of the wonderful things about being a medical educator is the fact that so many of the world’s great art galleries and museums have- or are in the process of -making their collections freely available on-line. In this posting I’ll tell you about three of my favorite on-line collections in the hope that you’ll share yours with me. more…

One of the primary aims of this blog is to enable quicker and easier communication between the providers and users of medical humanities resources. One of the most important of these types of resources focus on the importance of the stories and experiences of those affected by illness. Sometimes the aim in recording these stories - whether through interviews, in painting and photographs, through performance or documentary filming- is, quite simply, to help those affected by serious illness to articulate their stories and, sometimes but not always, to be witnessed.   more…