International Health Humanities Network Membership

I am Dr Sandhya S M.Pharm, FAGE,Ph.D working in the area of History of Medicne and Health Humanities in Kerala, India.

Postdoctoral fellow at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil.

I am a Medical Humanities scholar and currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California. I am currently working on a book project that looks at the historical relationship between medicine and aesthetics, particularly in nineteenth century Europe, when medicine was establishing itself as a scientific discipline. My other research also considers more contemporary engagements between medicine, literature, art, and popular culture, including a forthcoming article in JOMH on music and the cochlear implant. 

Expertise

• Project Management, resilience in Crisis and assertive in Social Change
• High Empathy with clients and colleagues
• Thorough and in-depth assessment of complex scenarios
• Creative thinking in practice combined with pragmatism
• Highly reliable in-depth person-centred work with clients in complex cases
• Highly organised and excellent in assessing and structuring complex processes for individuals and organisations
• Specialist skills in motivating clients to pursue improved quality of life
• Intuitive use of human system skills

Action research into the application of

• Psychodrama in Adult Education
• Leadership and Communication
• Substantial experience in team and project management, internationally
• Highly experienced in contributing to multidisciplinary teams
• Skilful and empathetic 1-1 guidance and mentoring with a wide variety of client groups
• Educationalist with international experience of many years
• Major philosophical yet applied postgraduate dissertations

Work

• Advocacy, CPD Human Rights, Employment Rights Act, Mental Health Act, 2012
• Senior Social Worker (Locum), England, 2007 - 2013
• Community Care Worker Wales, HE-tutor WBL, Chester University, 2005 - 2006
• Independent Research Sabbatical, Wales, 2000 - 2004
• Tutor in Nursing Colleges, Germany, 1996 - 1999
• Tutor in Pioneering Project of Inclusion of Disabled inFE, Edinburgh, 1995 - 1996
• Independent Social Worker, Munich, 1986 – 1994; Action Research Psychodrama
• Volunteer in pioneering chaplaincy, Munich, 1987 - 1992
• PA in Management of Publishing Company, 1981 - 1985
• Nursing Assistant and Support/Care Worker (various, p/t, latterly in senior roles), 1969 - present

CPD/Training

• Whistleblowing Law, Employment Rights, Human Rights in Mental Health, 2011 – (ongoing)
• Statutory CPD in HRA, MHA, MCA, CCA, Berks and Notts/England, 2007-2009
• Nursing Studies, Inter-professional Care, postgrad., Univ. of Essex,
• Manual Handling in Care, various updates, most recently Dolgellau, 2003
• Accreditation as HE Lecturer, ILT England, 2004
• Performing Arts, Coleg Harlech, Wales, Spring 2002
• Accreditation as FE lecturer, GTC Scotland, 1995
• Postgrad. Psychodrama Training, 300 hrs., Uberlingen, 1985 -1990
• Use of Media in Community Education, DIFF,
• Counselling in Education, Community College, Esslingen, 1976
• 4 weeks' residential/work-based nursing assistant training, Red Cross Stuttgart, 1970

Qualifications

• MA Contemporary Theology, Leicester 2004
• MA Social Pedagogy with major in Adult/Community Education, Tubingen 1981
• BA (Ed), Secondary – English and German, Esslingen 1978
• Abitur, Stuttgart, 1973

My undergraduate degree was in medical science. I have since attained my Masters of Letters (English) and am now pursuing postgraduate studies in contemporary poetry.

An interdisciplinary, medical-humanist scholar, Dr. Schillace writes about cultural production, history of science, and intersections of medicine and literature. She is the managing editor of Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, an international journal of cross-cultural health research and a guest curator and blogger for the Dittrick Medical History Museum. Dr. Schillace also manages the Fiction Reboot and Daily Dose blogs and is Chair of Communications for Death Salon, a conference featuring conversations on mortality and mourning. Her research and writing span these interests; in addition to multiple published research articles, she has recently been asked to write a book on mourning practices for a more general audience. Dr. Schillace was the keynote speaker for the annual meeting of the Archivists and Librarians in the History of Health Sciences 2013, and is the recent recipient of the Chawton House Library Fellowship (for study of 18^th century women writers) and the Wood Institute travel grant from the Philadelphia College of Physicians. Dr. Schillace also leads medical humanities conferences for Inter-disciplinary.net, Making Sense of Pain and Probing the Boundaries of Reproduction.

Justine has experience in many aspects of applied health research using a wide range of methodologies and approaches. She has particular interest in mental health service evaluation, carers, care homes, costs and supported employment. Her current work focuses on dementia and workforce development; developing e-learning resources and applying innovative approaches to knowledge exchange in dementia care, using film (Today is Monday) and drama. She commissioned Inside Out of Mind from playwright Tanya Myers and Meeting Ground Theatre Company – this play about dementia care had its premiere production in Nottingham in June 2013 and is planning to tour in 2014.

www.idea.nottingham.ac.uk

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/videos/2013/july/inside-out-of-mind.aspx

Jaime Schultz is a Professor of Kinesiology, with an affiliate faculty appointment in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, at Pennsylvania State University, USA.

Peter J. Schulz is Professor for Communication Theories and Health Communication at the Faculty of Communication Sciences and Director of the Institute of Communication and Health at the Università della Svizzera Italialiana (USI). He currently holds several research project grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation, among them one for a doctoral school for Communication & Health, and other funding bodies (including among others, King's Fund, UK, CancerBackup, UK and EU) in the area of health communication. Prior to his collaboration within the USI, he studied at the University of Frankfurt, Münster, Cracow, Freibourg in Breisgau and Eichstätt.

His recent research and publications have focused on consumer health literacy and empowerment, argumentation in health communications, and cultural factors in health. He is author of more than 70 scientific journal articles and has published 9 books. His latest publication is Theories of Communication Sciences (four volumes, Sage, London, 2010). He is also editor, in collaboration with Paul Cobley (London), of Handbooks of Communication Sciences (22 volumes, Mouton & De Gruyter). Since 2010 he has been Associate Editor of the journal Patient Education & Counseling (Elsevier). Furthermore, he has been part of the editorial and advisory board of various international scientific journals. He is a member of numerous national and international commissions at research institutions. Since 2003 he is a Guest Professor at Virginia Tech University, USA. In 2011 he had been elected as a member of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

I am interested in the value of meaning-making through drawing and creative practices and its intersection with learning or knowing in adults, especially in a group setting. I trained as a medical doctor and am an experienced lecturer in Health Professional Education. For my Ph.D. I designed a project that utilised expressive drawing to explore participants' perceptions of ageing. The groups comprised health professional students and people over 60. Drawing was a powerful non-dominant way of knowing that helped participants explore connections between their inner and outer world. They realised several myths of ageing had unthinkingly been internalised from their culture. They were then able to re-frame these individually. I am also a painter and origami artist.