International Helath Humanities Network: Humanities Subject Area Reports

The public health and social justice website can be found at:

http://www.publichealthandsocialjustice.org  or  http://www.phsj.org

The website contains articles and open-access slide shows, syllabi, and other documents relevant to topics in public health and social justice, along with hundreds of external links. There is significant content focusing on the medical humanities on the "Literature, Medicine, and Public Health" page at http://phsj.org/literature-medicine-and-public-health/. 

The aim of this project is to understand the scope and scale of problems facing migrant nurses in meeting the English standards for registration in Australia.

Findings may be used to improve the registration process of migrant nurses in the design of more effective, professionally directed methods of English language testing and education.

This will contribute to an improvement in the experience of gaining registration for NESB nurses as well as being more effectively language-ready upon gaining employment post-registration and the reduction of the economic, social and personal difficulties faced by NESB nurses.

The findings could also inform other health professions encountering similar issues with their English testing processes for migrants.

Teaching and learning resources

I am delighted to share the news about the recent publication of my new book 'Theatre for Children in Hospital. The Gift of Compassion" (Intellect, December 15th 2016) with the IHHN members. The book presents a 5-year theatre research study with children and their families in hospitals in W. Midlands in the U.K. Detailed examples of everyday artistic practice in hospital, vibrant dialogues between children as audiences and actors as visitors in the medical world, incidents of breath-taking theatrical experiences in children's wards (paediatrics, cardiac, oncology and intensive care units) and, evidence of the impact of bedside theatre on child emotional and social wellbeing during their stay in hospital make this book unique. Now that I am reading it, I feel that I have been truthful to myself while writing it. I also feel that I represent the truths of my actors, volunteers and audiences, including children, their families, nursing staff and arts managers in hospitals. Of course, I may be biased and therefore, I would love to hear from you, the readers, about your impressions, views, and opinions. My contact is p.sextou@newman.ac.uk