International Health Humanities Network Membership

Nicholas Peres is Lead for Learning Technologies Research and Development at Torbay Hospital, working in innovation, education and pioneering new visual technologies that have a focus towards patient care.  He is a PhD Researcher at the University of Plymouth based within Transtechnology Research situated in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.  

His PhD work within Transtechnology is primarily aimed towards understanding and using cinematic media to represent the patient voice and perspective for medical education, but remains firmly rooted in the groups shared objective of understanding science and technology as a manifestation of a range of human desires and cultural imperatives.    

Nick’s initial research to investigate the filmic benefit of capturing patient perspectives led to the innovative PatientVR – a worldwide first use of virtual reality and immersive video for clinicians/viewers to experience what it is like to see the hospital journey through the patient’s eyes, a project which is now actively being trialled at South Devon Healthcare Foundation Trust.

His continued work focuses on the power and benefit of media arts and immersive experience playback, particularly the use of film to represent a patient voice and need. This research has a particular emphasis on delivering experiences that focus on care and compassion, frequently drawing upon theories and practice that include simulation, film studies, cinema therapies, visual metaphors and media production.   

Nick has presented and spoken at a number of events, seminars and workshops in the Arts and Humanities space, which this year will include healthcare conferences such as ASPiH and Inside Government’s Raising the Quality of Hospital Standards forum.  

 Nick has previously worked in broadcast and film production, having studied a BA(hons) in Documentary Screen Production at the University of Winchester.  He continues to make and teach film making workshops and feels passionately at films empowering ability for people to tell stories. 

Elvira Perez is a research fellow at the Division of Psychiatry and applied Psychology at the University of Nottingham. She is interested in applying new video interventions such as Video Interactive Guidance (VIG) to improve communication between young patients and healthcare professionals. Currently she works assesing the efficacy of different ADHD parenting interventions, yoga in children homes, and drumming for young adults with ADHD. Se is also developing a new piece of research focused on translating parent's perspectives and experiences into relevant therapeutic interventions through discurse analysis technique

Rosie Perkins is Research Fellow in Performance Science at the Royal College of Music and an honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College London. Rosie’s research focuses on arts in health and performers’ career development, and she is programme leader for the RCM’s ground-breaking MSc in Performance Science. Her research has been supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and Arts Council England, and has featured in a range of international journals and press. Rosie is an honorary member of the Dutch research group Lifelong Learning in Music, a Fellow of the Institute of Mental Health University of Nottingham, and a Fellow of the UK’s Higher Education Academy.

Student, MLitt

Sarah Pett is a graduate of Girton College, Cambridge and Rhodes University, South Africa. She is currently at the University of York, where she works on an AHRC-funded PhD entitled “Private accounts on public shelves: Reading and writing chronic illness, 1990-2012”. Her research interests focus on the medical humanities, women’s writing, and South African literature and culture. 

Arts for Health PhD Student and Research Assistant. Art therapist and artist background.

I am a professor of literary theory, based at Ghent University (Belgium). In the area of health humanities, I have published on bibliotherapeutic questions mainly, among others in my book Literature and Consolation. Fictions of Comfort (Edinburgh University Press, 2021; paperback out in February 2023). At my university I am tecahing a course on Literature and Care. In collaboration with colleagues from the Medical Faculty, I am in the process of setting up a research project on the use of literature in medical therapeutic contexts. 

Currently teaching the art and craft of research writing at a state university, I am a practicing poet and creative non-ficition writer who is presently trying to transition into a related, but distinctly different, line of work.  I will begin volunteering at a local hospice near my home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, with the hopes of facilitating a writing workshop for patients and family members.

My dissertation project, which I sadly never completed, was on the difficulty of writing emodied illness narratives.  My own mother's untimely death to cancer necessarily forestalled what had already become somehat of a dead project.  I am now interested in reviving that project as a book of my own outside of the perameters of the academy for reasons both personal and professional.  Beyond my work in language arts, I was a student of dance as an undergraduate and took additional training in dance therapy at one point in my career.

On a personal note, i have suffered from clinical depression and attachment disorder for most of my life and am just now, at 55 years old, starting to make something useful from that wreckage. 

Interested in Health Communication,  Health management, Pharmaceutical and Medical research, Sociology, Behavioral theories, Communication theories and Public Policies.

2007-Master degree in  Communication Sciences (Business communication)- Faculty of Political Sciences  (University of Sassari)

2009-Master in Health Institute management- Faculty of Economics (University of Pisa)

Presently- Master Degree Public Policy and Government -Political Sciences (Department of Political Sciences, Communication Sciences and Information Engeneery- University of Sassari)

2007 Honorary Fellow of Theories of Argumentation and persuasive languages

2010-2012 Administrative Assistant in Health Management Staff of Asl n.3 (Quality and Accrediting Area)

Other: Journalism, strategic marketing, e-commerce. Involved in various project related to Health Communication and Health Quality.

Dissertations titles:

"Social Accountability in Italian Health Institutes"(2009)

"The kaizen Keys and the Hacker ethic: a compared perspective of different organizational strategies"(2007)

"E-commerce: new markets and business strategies" (2004)

Biosketch

Paras K Pokharel

20 Years of Experiences in inter disciplinary health professional education .Extensively involved from inception to final execution of health Sciences University,BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal.

Academic appointment:

• Professor and Chief, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, 
• BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences on January 2009 –till date 
• Member Academic Committee: 2011-till date 
• Member Research Committee: 2009-2012 till date 
• Member Ethical Review Board: 2008-2012 till date

Education:

• MD Community Medicine, 1997, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.
• MD General Medicine, 1993, Zaporozhe State Medical University, USSR 
• Physician Assistant: 1984 Institute of Medicine, TU Kathmandu 

Relevant Experiences:

• 10 years experiences of running Health Care Institutions in Primary and Secondary Care as a Community Physician
• More than 50 Publications in primary care and public health related scientific journals.
• MD/MS/MDS/MSc/MPH and PhD students for Thesis and Dissertations.
• First hand experiences in Health Service system of rural Nepal.

Promoted in Community Medicine a model of Trans-disciplinary Health Professional Education to UG of Medical, Dental, Nursing and Public Health graduates to train in field epidemiology.Other Experiences: Expert Committee Member for Revitalization of Primary Health Care in SEARO member States and Adjunct Professor of Indian School of Public Health New Delhi ,Public Health Foundation of India.