Many years ago I read a book chapter that would have a profound effect on how I thought about my practice as a health professional, and dramatically shape the future direction for my research and the way I thought about the world generally. That chapter was titled Interviewing women: A contradiction in terms and it was written by Anne Oakley. Oakley has just published a follow up paper titled Interviewing Women Again: Power, Time and the Gift, and reading it reminded me why it had such a profound impact on me 20 years ago. In the early 1990s I was working at The Children's Hospital in Birmingham (UK) and studying a masters degree in research methodology. The degree was life-changing. … [Read more...] about Interviewing women: A contradiction in terms
Are we gatekeepers, or locksmiths?
This post originally appeared as a reflection at usr/space, after reading David's post on the profession as a gated community. It got me thinking about how the metaphors we use inform our thinking and practice. David Nicholls recently blogged about how we might think about access to physiotherapy education, and offers the metaphor of a gated community as one possibility. The staff act as the guards at the gateway to the profession and the gate is a threshold across which students pass only when they have demonstrated the right to enter the community. This got me thinking about the metaphors we use as academics, particularly those that guide how we think about our role as examiners. David's … [Read more...] about Are we gatekeepers, or locksmiths?
Staying healthy in the 18th century
Sanitary Systems Dumoulin, the physician, observed at his death that "he left behind him two great physicians, regimen and river water." Villars, the French quack, who, before the middle of the last century, made a fortune by an almost justifiable fraud, kept thousands of patients in good health by administering to them nitre dissolved in Seine water (sold at five francs a bottle), eat moderately, drink temperately, take plenty of bodily exercise, go to and rise from bed early, and avoid mental anxiety. And in the same way the English quack, Graham, whilst he presided over the "Temple of Health," prohibited to his patients the use of the "deadly poisons and weakeners of both body and soul, … [Read more...] about Staying healthy in the 18th century