Professor Alan Bleakley (2013-2016)
Work/role/ academic practice:
Emeritus Professor of Medical Education and Medical Humanities, University of Plymouth School of Medicine. Retired from full-time academia 2015. Working part-time for University of Exeter Medical School; giving talks, examining PhD students etc nationally and internationally; busy writing and editing books.
Particular AMH achievements:
- Early Council member, active in developing the profile of the Association and co-writing the first Constitution.
- Drafted the new Constitution (2018).
- Inaugurated and developed the first AMH website.
- Re-ignited lapsed partnership with the BMJ Medical Humanities journal.
- Developed partnership with the Wellcome Trust leading to regular financial support for annual conferences.
- Planned and hosted three annual conferences: 2005, 2010, 2015.
- Instrumental in building a partnership with the Canadian Association for Health Humanities.
The value of the medical humanities:
I have worked tirelessly to establish the medical humanities within medical education, particularly undergraduate curricula, and particularly in the UK and Canada. This has involved curriculum development work within my own medical school and as advisor to other schools and organisations; publishing in the field; and giving talks and seminars nationally and internationally. While the dominant voice of the medical humanities in the UK is now in the interdisciplinary academic study of medical culture, my own interest has been in promoting the medical humanities as a core and integrated aspect of a medical education.
My current work:
is mainly in writing. I am centrally involved in developing Taylor & Francis’ Routledge list of medical humanities books, where I have contributed five single authored and edited volumes so far, and have also co-written / edited two books for Cambridge Scholars Publishing:
Bates V, Bleakley A, Goodman S. (Eds.) 2013. Medicine, Health and the Arts: Approaches to the Medical Humanities. Abingdon: Routledge.
Bleakley A. 2016. Medical Humanities and Medical Education. Abingdon: Routledge.
Bleakley A. 2018. Thinking With Metaphors in Medicine: The State of the Art. Abingdon: Routledge.
Bleakley A. (Ed.) 2019. Routledge Handbook of the Medical Humanities. Abingdon: Routledge.
Bleakley, A. (Forthcoming 2020). Educating Doctors’ Senses Through the Medical Humanities: “How Do I Look?” Abingdon: Routledge.
Bleakley A, Lynch L, Whelan G. (Eds.) Risk and Regulation at the Interface of Medicine and the Arts: Dangerous Currents. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Marshall R, Bleakley A. 2017. Rejuvenating Medical Education: Seeking Help from Homer. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Paul Lazarus ( 2010 – 2013)
Founder member of AMH in 2002. Associate Professor of Medical Education. Previously a GP and honarary associate professor of medical education, Paul was a founder member of AMH in 2002. He organised AMH 2010 conference (“All the Ward’s a Stage”) at Leicester, retiring in 2018. During his work he developed the role of medical humanities as a source of informing and shaping healthcare education. He was the programme co-convenor for MA in Medical Humanities for arts/humanities graduates, healthcare professionals and for intercalating medical students. And he was also convenor for postgraduate certificate in medical humanities for GPs.
His publications include:
Lazarus PA, Rosslyn FM. The Arts in Medicine: setting up and evaluating a new special study module at Leicester Warwick Medical School. Medical Education 2003: 37(6); 553-5592.
Lazarus, P.A. Patients’ experiences and perceptions of medical student candidates sitting a finals examination. Medical Teacher 2007,. 29, (5), 484-489
Martyn Evans (2005)
(https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/directory/staff/?id=2609)