Dr Nicola Davis once had the misfortune of studying a PG Certificate in Medical Education with our very own Andrew McKechnie, thankfully she has recovered and has created a fantastic series of webinars hosted by The Royal College of Radiologists
Nicola is passionate about the benefits of the arts and creativity for wellbeing. She is an avid reader, and helps run a twitter book club @BookOncology. She is also an amateur watercolour artist and music lover who is always on the lookout for new creative opportunities.
@drnicoladavis
A series of 5 weekly events running from 19th August to 14th September 2020
These events provide an opportunity for you to relax away from the stresses of everyday life in medicine, to explore new creative experiences, or rediscover those that have been long been forgotten. You will be able to learn about the evidence behind the benefits of creativity on mental wellbeing through the experiences of others who already utilise the humanities in their personal and professional lives. Through these events we hope you will leave feeling inspired and able to take some of the ideas with you to put into practice.
Talk: The seriousness of fun with Dr Heidi Edmundson
Wednesday 19 August 2020, 19:00
FREE and open to all professions and specialties
This talk discusses how fun and creativity can be used to facilitate staff wellbeing. There will be an opportunity for questions at the end.
This event will also be recorded so it can be viewed at a later date.
Heidi is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Whittington Health. She has worked in the NHS for over 20 years and for the last 10 years has been a consultant in Emergency Medicine. She is a passionate advocate for NHS staff wellness and its importance with regards to the individual, the workforce and the patients they care for. She believes in the power of using fun and creativity as means to facilitate wellness, build teams and give people a voice. She has introduced sessions dedicated to ‘fun and creativity’ to her workplace in which staff are encouraged to play games or take part in creative tasks. She believes that by engaging in fun and creative tasks people are able to express their whole selves. Seeing and appreciating this allows us to connect to the humanity in ourselves and others.
@heidi_ed
Interactive Workshop: Poetry x-ray with Beth Calverley
Tuesday 25 August 2020, 19:30
Number of participants limited to 20 - Doctors from all specialties may attend. Paid for session.
Beth is a poet, creative coach and founder of The Poetry Machine. She co-creates poems with community members on her manual typewriter, helping them to express their thoughts and feelings. Beth collaborates with hospitals, charities, universities, schools and festivals nationally. She is Poet in Residence at UHBW NHS Foundation Trust, supported by Above & Beyond, and a Bristol Life Awards Art Finalist 2020. Her poems were included in the NHS anthology These are the Hands.
@BethCalverley
How does it work?
Perfect for poetry-skeptics and poetry-lovers alike, this session will take a gentle x-ray of your creative bones (no matter how hidden)! Pause in the warmth of poetry and hold your pre-conceptions up to the light.
Beth Calverley, Pause & Create's resident poet, will host a calming creative consultation to reveal the group's collective ideas about self-care. Beth will ask you what you do within work and beyond to bring joy and balance into your life. Responding to your words, Beth will speed-craft a poem, live in the moment, on her beautiful typewriter.
At the end of the session, Beth will read the collaborative poem aloud to the group. Participants will each receive a digital copy of the poem to keep. A recording of the collaborative poem, plus another poem by Beth, will also be available to participants
Interactive Workshop: Experimental Drawing Workshop with Artist Emma Barnard MA (RCA)
Tuesday 1 September 2020, 19:30
Number of participants restricted to 15 - Doctors from all specialties may attend. Paid for session.
Emma is a freelance Artist working in medicine and medical education. She is a member of the AERG (Arts & Ethics Research Group) at Edinburgh University and worked with King's College on ‘A Dry & Silent World: living with hidden disabilities’: http://bit.ly/2l07fwo. Also Paintings in Hospitals #60Voices - Art to Inform and Improve Care: http://bit.ly/2n2iuoH
@patientaspaper
Participants will create drawings by combining three creative sources: direct observation, the mind’s eye, and the intuitive subconscious. Tapping into your imagination, intuition and powers of observation by exploring various ways of seeing, both perceptually and conceptually, these exercises will help you to concentrate on what you are seeing.
You will learn to shift your thinking from an analytical, labelling mode to one that is more intuitive and visual. The workshop will support participants’ visual literacy, helping with language, communication and interaction. There is no wrong way to draw experimentally. The exercises will focus on the process of drawing not on creating finished works of art. Learning to see and draw in different ways and through different lenses can also help with mindfulness, reflection and concentration.
Interactive workshop: Making Practitioner Comics: We are not really superheroes with stethoscopes with Dr Muna Al-Jawad
Monday 7 September 2020, 19:30
Number of participants restricted to 20 - Doctors from all specialties may attend. Paid for session.
Workshop description: *Note: you do not need to be good at drawing, or a superhero to do this workshop*. Muna believes that creating comics can help healthcare professionals understand and see their practice in a new light. Comics combine narrative, visual and symbolic elements which make them a unique medium. They also lend themselves to humour and subversion. The aim of the workshop is to show participants how they might use comics as a way to reflect on their practice, as an educational tool, and as a way to research areas which are difficult to reach through more traditional research methods. Muna will show some of her work and then ask you to join in by drawing a strip of a recent experience at work. Please have a pen and paper ready for this. We will analyse these drawings and use them to make a manifesto of our values at work.
Panel session: 'Sharing stories of the power of creativity’ - In conversation with Dr Sam Guglani, Dr Catriona Davis, Dr Anna Dillon and Donna Ford.
Monday 14 September 2020, 19:00
FREE and open to all professions and specialties
This session will conclude the series by exploring personal experiences of the arts and creativity, and how they have benefited those individuals both personally and professionally. The discussion will be chaired by Dr Nicola Davis and there will be an opportunity for questions.
This event will also be recorded so it can be viewed at a later date.