International Health Humanities Network Membership

I am an academic and journalist teaching courses in Narrative Medicine and writing at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC. I am also a blogger at www.allheartmatters.com and have recently edited a new anthology, The Art of Medicine in Metaphors.

Professor of European Studies and Dean of the College of Arts and Letters (Humanities and Social Sciences) of SDSU

Georgia Bowers is a nationally recognised scholar practitioner who specialises in creating theatre with older adults in non-traditional spaces such as care homes, hospitals, sheltered housing accommodation and day centres. Her research examines how applied theatre can challenge ageism and act as an intervention towards ageist induced shame by encouraging shame resilience. 

Georgia is an Associate Lecturer at the Guildford School of Acting (University of Surrey), University of Chichester and the University of Portsmouth. She is a member of the Portsmouth Dementia Action Alliance and is the Graduate School Representative for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education: Wellness, Community and Ageing Focus Group (North America). Georgia is also a trustee of London Bubble Theatre Company. 

Her professional creative engagements to date have included: Royal Opera House, Chichester Festival Theatre, Brighton People's Theatre, Spare Tyre, Young Carers: BUCKS, London Bubble, Hampstead Theatre, Almeida Theatre, Centre Point, Watford Palace Theatre and Theatre Royal Windsor.  

I am Professor of Bioethics, Clinical Ethics and Medical Law at St. George's, University of London. I have a particular interest in narrative approaches to clinical ethics and draw on the humanities, particularly theatre, drama, storytelling, creative writing and literature, in my educational and clinical support work and writing.

I am Professor of Bioethics, Clinical Ethics and Medical Law at St. George's, University of London. However, I spend as much time in theatres as I do in lecture theatres. I am particularly interested in drama, theatre and narrative as means of informing, reflecting, shaping, conceptualising and challenging healthcare. I am currently working on an edited collection of essays on the broad theme of theatre and healthcare ethics. I am committed to public engagement and I have worked for the last 9 years on the BBC Radio 4 series 'Inside the Ethics Committee'. I am in the process of developing a new series with the Science and Drama units of BBC Radio 4 which will explore the ethico-legal cases and stories that have changed practice. That programme is scheduled for broadcast in Summer 2013. I write theatre reviews for Times Higher Education and I am a contributor to Radio 3's cultural and arts programme: Night Waves. Outside of working hours at St. George's, I am a voracious reader with a three novel per week habit. I write fiction and plays and I am concentrating, at the moment, on a novel set in contemporary London and the second war that led to the creation of the Democratic Republic of Congo. When writer's block strikes, I turn to my cello which continues to thwart me in my efforts to make beautiful music. You can find me on Twitter @deborahbowman where my chronic curiosity and endemic enthusiasm means I spend too much time talking about theatre, ethics, the cello, healthcare and writing.

Melanie is founder and facilitator of No Wrong Notes, a group singing model based on the oral tradition.  No Wrong Notes is non-auditioned and non-performing, and inclusive of singers of all levels of experience. It's highest level goal is enjoyment, and singing for its own sake. Melanie facilitates three ongoing adult No Wrong Notes groups in workplace and community settings, as well as  short term sessions in community and healthcare settings. Her research focuses on the effect of this singing model on participants. She is presenting and publishing results internationally.

Melanie is co-founder/coordinator of the Arts and Humanities in Health and Wellbeing Research group at the University of Calgary, where she works as a literatures librarian. She is a published poet, and has experience in drama and storytelling.

Emily is a PhD student at the University of Derby, researching Creative Ageing (under the supervision of Professor Susan Hogan, Professor David Sheffield and Dr Sung-Hee Lee). 

She is conducting a systematic review of participatory arts for promoting wellbeing and quality of life for healthy older people (PROSPERO Protocol).

Emily has an MSc in Cultural Events Management (De Montfort University) and a BA (Hons) in Humanties with Art History (Open University).

Hello I am a family physician and educator at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in Richmond Virginia (formerly Medical College of Virginia). I have been the teaching the family medicine clerkship for many years and have just taken on teaching a course called the Patient Physician and Society in the 3^rd and 4^th year of medical school.  Most of the course is on line and the students are writing and sharing reflective essays on challenging patient encounters. I am hoping to learn as much as possible about what others are doing to promote empathy and address compassion fatigue around the world. Look forward to being a part of this group. Best melissa 

I am a family physician and course director for the M3/4 Patient Physician and Society course(PPS) at the VCU School of Medicine. I was the director of the family medicine clerkship for 20 years.

PPS runs throughout all 4 years of medical school and covers diverse topics such as palliative care, death and dying; spirituality in medicine, doctor patient relationships, health care disparities and other topics.

During the M3 year students write reflective essays about challenging patient care experiences and work in teams on a humanism inquiry project to share with their classmates at the end of M4 year.

I developed wellness workshops that used theater, painting, yoga, music, writing and craft making to take a breath from clinic duties. 

With VCU library colleagues we developed a virtual collaborative poetry workshop that addresses physician burnout and isolation.

I am lecturer in history at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Currently PI on Irish Records Linkage, 1864-1913 an Irish Research Council Reserach Project Grant, I work on health histories in the late nineteenth and early twentienth centuries. In partnership with the Digital Repository of Ireland, the aim of the IRC project is to use advances in Big Data technologies to reconstitute virtual families from vital registration data and to provide a more in depth analysis of Irish maternal and infant mortality, with a particular focus on Dublin. My personal research examines how poor Irish emigrants medicalise in the transnational context. It uses a multi-disciplinary approach to conventional historical sources to examine how cultural factors affect how medicalisation evolves.