International Health Humanities Network Membership

Service user for 20 years 

I trained as a psychiatric nurse in the 1980s and then as a dramatherapist. I now work as a lecturer in the Faculties of Arts and Health and Life Sciences at York St John University where, with a colleague Gemma Alldred, I have founded, Converge a project offering courses in the arts to people who use mental health services. We work in partnership with the local NHS Trust. I am a performing member of Playback Theatre York.

Abranam (Rami) Rudnick is a psychiatrist (MD) and a philosopher (PhD). He is currently an Associate Professor and Chair of the Division of Social and Rural Psychiatry at the University of Western Ontario and the Physician Leader of the Psychosis Program at Regional Mental Health Care, London/St Thomas, Ontario, Canada. He is also the Founder and Head of the Canadian Unit of the International Network of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics (Haifa). His research focuses in particular on psychiatric rehabilitation, bioethics and philosophy of health and its correlates.

Professor or Philosophy and Religious Studies, Member of Faculty of Medicine Healthcare and Humanities Steering group. Interested in the hermeneutics of healthcare

Dr Rutherford trained as an architect, specialising in architectural and psychoacoustics for his Masters and PhD at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Upon graduation, he worked as an applications engineer for Sound Alert (Leeds) where he was part of a team that developed localizable auditory warning devices for the emergency services as well as navigation (emergency egress) beacons to help guide people out of burning buildings. He subsequently spent a further 3 years at the University of Leeds as an EPSRC funded postdoctoral research fellow, continuing the development of the emergency egress beacons.

In 2002 he joined the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Nottingham as lecturer, delivering modules in architectural design studio, environmental (building) science and environmental / behavioural psychology as it applies to the built environment. Since then he has undertaken several roles within the Department and is primarily responsible for the Department's Accreditation Processes. In 2007 he was promoted to Associate Professor.

Dr Rutherford's primary research interests lie with the acoustic environment - how sound is generated, how it propagates through the environment and how it is perceived / received by those exposed to it. This covers a wide range of research subjects including performance space acoustics, lecture theatre acoustics and acoustics within healthcare facilities. Ultimately his research tries to understand the impact that soundscapes have on those listening or exposed to them. His secondary research interests lie with environmental sustainability and how this shapes the built environment (and once again the occupants of the built environment). He has supervised several successful PhD students in this area.

I work in the department of Human Communication Sciences at the The University of Sheffield. My interests are in linguistics, discourse analysis and stylistics. I am looking to learn more about and find collaboration in the health humanities.  

Dr. Francisco Javier Saavedra Macías is Assistant Professor at the Department of Experimental Psychology in the University of Seville and member of the Laboratory of Human Activity Research Group. He is also research fellow in the Andalusian Fundation for the Social Integration of Person with Schizophrenia where he coordinates a research project about prevalence of psychological disorder in the prision population in Andalusia. He participates in different research project about violence abuse in the domestic context and gender culture in the Andalusian School. Dr. Saavedra wrote his doctoral thesis about changes in life narratives of patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia that lives in supported house.

Dr. Saavedra is interested in caring processes in socio-cultural settings, especially discursive and communicational aspects. With regard to the interest in caring process, he is consultant of the Association for Helping Families of Chronically Ill. Amongst other activities as consultant in this association; he leads workshops and groups of familiar and professional carer in order to improve caring skills and controlling stress related to the caring. Moreover, he was professional carer of mental health patients in supporting houses during 8 years. He is interested in the use of the art and literature as therapy and as method to teach practice in mental health. He is member of the “Madness and Literature Network” in Nottingham that is founded by Arts and Humanities Research Council. He is president of the delegation in Seville of the NGO for developing of humanitarian projects “Acción Verapaz” and member of the executive committee of this organization.

He has been invited by the University of Freiburg (Germany) in 2006, University the Florence in 2007 (Italy), the University of East of London and by the Health and language Research Group of the University of Nottingham in the year 2008. During his stays in these institutions he was invited to participated in several seminar. In the year 2010 Dr. Javier Saavedra obtained Highfields fellowships of Centre of Advanced Studies and was invited scholar at the University of Nottingham.

Sadullaev U.A. She is an assistant professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Tashkent Medical Academy in Uzbekistan. She treats patients and teaches the students  in clinical department of obstetrics and gynecology. Working with students she made considerable progress and succeeded to increase number of publications by the students and staff members, held number of workshops and conferences.   She takes part in the projects which helps to improve her skills in treating as well as develop the process of teaching. She is  responsible, active and sociable. During this period she had published a number of articles in the local and international scientific journals. She is working on her PhD thesis “The functional state of liver in woman with uterine fibroids after Embolization of Uterine artery”. She was passionate about interventional research. She decided to become a researcher and believes that her research can change the health care system. She participated in different workshops all over the world.

A PhD student in the field of literature.