The Role of Non-medical Professions in the Health Humanities: A Roundtable Discussion

King’s College London, Council Room June 12, 2012 18:00-19:30

Hosted by Dr. Jessica Howell and Rachael Renaud for the ‘Re-reading Nursing’ Research Group

Professor Brian Hurwitz, Professor Anne Marie Rafferty and Dr. Angela Woods

The goal of the Wellcome Trust funded Centre for the Humanities and Health is ‘to uncover the diversity and complexity of voices pertaining to illness and disease embedded in cultural activities and products’ (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/chh/about/index.aspx). To this end, a roundtable discussion is convened to address the voices of non-medical professionals (nurses, midwives, dentists, pharmacists and allied health professionals) and the roles they play in the Health Humanities. The speakers also will be asked to address how Health Humanities methodologies and research methods can best ‘uncover’ and study these voices.

The speakers will address the facilitators’ questions for one hour, followed by half an hour of discussion. Please join us afterwards for a wine reception. If you would like to attend, or for further information, please email jessica.howell@kcl.ac.uk.

BRIAN HURWITZ has been an NHS general practitioner in London for thirty years and since 2002 Professor of Medicine and the Arts at King’s College London, where he now directs the Centre for the Humanities and Health. Based in the Department of English Language and Literature, his research interests include narrative studies in relation to medical practice, ethics, law and the literary shape of case reports.

ANNE MARIE RAFFERTY, CBE, FRCN is a historian and Professor of Nursing Policy at the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, where she served as Dean from 2004-2012. She directs the ‘Nursing and Identity’ strand of research at the Centre for the Humanities and Health. Her research interests combine history, health policy and health services research.

ANGELA WOODS is Lecturer in Medical Humanities, School of Medicine & Health at Durham University. Her current research interests include the interplay between theoretical and subjective accounts of psychotic experience; new modes of ‘doing interdisciplinarity’ (such as critical neuroscience); narrative identity; and the role of narrative in the medical humanities.

The Council Room is in the Strand Campus of King’s College, second floor.