Medical Humanities Research Centre (MHRC)

Conversations about Arts, Humanities and Health

Conversations about Arts, Humanities and Health is a webinar-podcast series which creates dialogue and encounter between people working across arts & humanities and healthcare & medicine. 

Episodes start as live webinars, which feature one or several central guests, who talk about their journeys in the medical and health humanities and share insights about key topics in this interdisciplinary space. During the webinar, co-hosts Dieter Declercq and Ian Sabroe weave in questions from audiences, but the focus remains on the stories of the Conversation guest(s). Afterwards, Conversations get produced and released as a podcast, so they remain available as permanent resources. The current producer is Iona Gray, supported by a College of Arts & Humanities Internship; past producers are Dr David Brown and Dr Bence Bardos. 

The Conversations contribute to research culture in the medical and health humanities. They are made by researchers and practitioners for researchers and practitioners. The Conversations are a ‘semi-formal’ space, creating a structured space for the informality inherent to a vibrant research culture. Informal exchanges at a conference dinner table or encouraging words over coffee are crucial to discussion, collaboration and capacity building. Yet, these moments are not easily expressed in traditional research outputs like articles or books. They are also often ephemeral: if you were not there, you have missed the moment of advice, insight or shared vulnerability. By producing and disseminating webinar-podcasts, the Conversations set out to create lasting and accessible moments for encounter and dialogue between leading researchers and practitioners in medical and health humanities. 

The Conversations started in 2021, hosted at the University of Kent, with support from the Churchill Foundation. Since 2024, they have been hosted at The University of Glasgow, in ongoing collaboration with the University of Sheffield.

Links to every episode can be found here.

Hosts

Dr Dieter Declercq

Dieter joined the University of Glasgow in September 2024. His work contributes to activities in the Medical Humanities Research Centre, as part of developments around narrative medicine across the College of Arts & Humanities, as well as to teaching and research in the Film & Television Studies programme, in the School of Culture & Creative Arts.

Dieter's work seeks to foster fruitful interaction between arts, humanities, and health. He has researched the important contributions of popular media and aesthetic activity to our lives, health and wellbeing – with a specific focus on narrative. He is passionate about collaborating with artists, professionals, researchers and communities from a variety of backgrounds. His research combines theoretical perspectives and empirical approaches, ranging from close analysis of media to philosophical argumentation, alongside interviews, focus groups and ethnographic approaches.

Prof. Ian Sabroe

Prof Ian Sabroe was a Consultant in Respiratory Medicine (Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust) and Honorary Professor of Medical Humanities (University of Sheffield). He was a respiratory physician, whose clinical practice focuses in two areas, severe asthma and pulmonary hypertension. His work in medical humanities explores clinician and patient experience. Ian’s research examines how illness affects people’s lives, and the challenges that caring for people with illness presents to clinicians. He teaches clinical ethics and aspects of justice. He often works to apply justice theory to understanding and improving healthcare, physician and patient experience. Ian was awarded a Fellowship by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust to examine how medical humanities knowledge is used and taught in the US, and how UK medical education might benefit from the US model of medical humanities.