#Flourishmed2021
Welcome
Welcome to #FlourishMed2021.
We have called this symposium because there needs to be culture change in medicine both for health care professionals and their patients. The term flourishing in medicine offers a direction of travel, engaging with the 'what is' of wellbeing, the shadow work of being human.
Philosophically flourishing has been approximated with Aristotle’s term ‘eudaimonia’ which is wellbeing through meaning making, finding purpose, mastery and personal growth. Metaphorically flourishing connects us with images of trees, flowers, gardens and the space to explore loss, growth, interconnectedness and context.
This symposium builds on previous flourishing through creative enquiry work captured on our creative enquiry website
Flourishing symposium team @Flourish_Med
Patient Voices
Thoughts on ‘flourishing’ by Gavin Blench
....Every day is a struggle with the seductive voices in my head that whisper “oh what’s the point”. Through what I do with my activity in the world, I transform, what many people have referred to as a tragedy, into a wonderful opportunity to flourish. My practice allows me to dance with those partners of loss, pain and decline with more grace....
Wildflower inks, waiting for aortic endo-leak surgery 2021, Natasha Duggan
In winter 2020, I was informed I had a complicated aortic endo~leak, it was eventually decided that surgery was an option and a date was set for the first week of June 2021. After my operation was cancelled the first time, I began to focus on the wildflowers that were coming up in the garden. I drew them daily, using sticks and inks. The process kept me in the present, focussing on the flow of lines and marks. I felt it helped me navigate the difficult emotions that arose over the month.
Finally after recovery, I’m back in the garden doing ink drawings, observing and capturing the changing of the season.
Student voices
Buy yourself some flowers by Felicity Smith
I bought myself some flowers last week. I picked them from a flower stall, a bunch of daffodils, their bright yellow heads not quite escaped from the green buds. I carried them home in their elastic band, tucked in the side pocket of my rucksack trying not to crush them with the weight of my laptop and textbooks as I sat on the tube. They felt very fragile in the bustle of the commute...
Hear more at the flourishmed2021 symposium or click here to read more
Breaking Free from the Chains of Expectations by Natasha Alia Razman
...I have learnt from this journey of self-compassion that it is okay to not be the best, and that it is okay to not live up to every expectation. It is okay to take things slow and take a breather. It is okay to make mistakes then learn from them, and it is okay to put your mental health first ...
Self-care by Rebecca Walker
Plants need compassion to grow. They need water, they need sun and they need space to be able to thrive. Without these essential components, no one would expect a plant to grow and flourish. Without love and nurture, a plant inevitably fails to grow to its full potential.
So why do we expect this of ourselves?....
Ideas
Creative Enquiry = exploring lived experience through the arts
2020 Podcast: Louise Younie on Creative enquiry in the medical school (13 minutes), Click here
Some images to capture what creative enquiry spaces can offer:
Flourishing.pptxyounie jhh When I say flourishing in medical education.pdfArticle: When I say Flourishing....
#FlourishingFridays
Join us on twitter... @Flourish_Med
By Dr Rachel Handley - on Flourishing
These doodles were my first experiments with alcohol inks, which are a very fluid and uncontrollable medium...
I used the doodling to sustain me and keep my heart open while I was working on a difficult report for work.
The images emerged, (I think of freedom, and flourishing), from abstract sweeps of colour. I was amazed by how inviting it was to get lost in just watching and allowing, and then coaxing, as I connected into something deeper.
Flourishing is what happens to us, as people, when there is space to get lost, to allow, and connect to something deeper. In healthcare it is so rare to find these spaces, where the structures and demands upon us encourage us to abandon the very things we know would do us good.
Practising open and playful enquiry is like a gracious dynamite to the systems that are begging us to be changed.
Papers
Humanising leadership
Park et al in their paper Co-Creating a Thriving Human-Centered Health System in the Post-Covid-19 Era draw upon organisational developmental research to conceptualise ways in which leaders can rebuild healthcare systems promoting workforce wellbeing.
Although these pandemic times are volatile and uncertain there is also cause for hope, historically pandemics have given rise to pan-systemic changes. In these times people and relationship matter more. There is an opportunity to humanise the leadership to deliver systemic changes.
Park et al draw upon evidence to suggest future healthcare leadership enacts the following:
Shared human vulnerability
Meaningful work
Self care and compassion
Equal voice
Reflective space
Relationships matter
Image by Dr Rachel Handley @hand_el_ee_why
Grief
Grief is a theme emerging in these COVID times, part of lived experience of being human and part of flourishing - and perhaps as Gavin Blench writes at the top of this page - learning 'to dance with those partners of loss, pain and decline' is part of this journey.
https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1803 COVID grief has cracked us open.
https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/374/bmj.n2144.full.pdf why we need to make space for grief.
'Doctors are often encouraged or even required to set aside their own grief in the name of professionalism and efficient patient care. But this makes us all less authentic and more alone. Being open about our own experiences of grief, showing “the strength of vulnerability,” can help others as well as ourselves and may further shift society’s attitudes to death and loss'.
Burnout
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmp2003149 Physician burnout interrupted - explores the importance of Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness for supporting physician wellbeing and intrinsic motivation and how implemented wellbeing measures often fail to deliver on these.
Self-compassion
https://self-compassion.org/the-three-elements-of-self-compassion-2/ Self-kindness, Common humanity, Mindfulness.
Symposium notes
