A few years ago I used to run a special option for medical students on social change in modern Britain. It was a bit like the general studies we had to take in the sixth form at school, intended to broaden outlooks. While my focus was on the volatility of the present, it is not… Read More »
Jurgen Habermas is less discussed than he was even a decade ago, but having written of the relevance of his work for health and health care I am still occasionally asked to give talks on applications of his theories to the health domain. Hence this first in a short series of blogs. All I am… Read More »
Along with other editors like Paul Higgs, Clive Seale, Gareth Williams and Ellen Annendale, I am often asked to participate in workshops and seminars on ‘getting published’. These invitations are clearly motivated by concerns about imminent assessments – presently, the REF. While I understand the pressures and maybe can deliver a helpful tip or two,… Read More »
‘Modern government could be interpreted as a device for projecting corporate power. Since the 1980s, In Britain, the US and other nations, the primary mission of governments has been to grant their sponsors in the private sector ever greater access to public money and public life. There are several means by which they do so:… Read More »
We were ready to leave our mid-Surrey provincial town partly because we needed more space, what with my 90-year old father encamped in our living room, and partly because of the predictable, grating noise from the Queens’s Head opposite. We could pool our resources and find somewhere larger and quieter. But ending up in Mickleham… Read More »
Some blogs should be expressions of indignation, and this one certainly is. Not that being angry/passionate can be allowed to obstruct evidence-based argument. Towards the tail end of 2011 Wendy Savage and I responded to medical students moving on from campaigns against the threefold hike in student fees and the abolition of the EMS to… Read More »
On twitter a few months back I ventured a list of ‘top ten’ living sociologists. What I meant of course was my favourites, meaning those who had most impressed or influenced me during my intellectual travels. Without revisiting that list I am in this blog offering for consideration a top twelve that, I guess, bears… Read More »
This blog builds on my previous precis of basic critical realism to offer an illustration of its potential for coming to terms with ‘interdisciplinarity’. The focus is on epilepsy-related quality of life, and my analysis draws on work conducted with Caroline Selai and Panagiota Afentouli and published as a chapter in a volume edited by… Read More »
I recently convened an afternoon workshop on ‘interdisciplinarity and health’ as part of UCL’s Behaviour Change Month. I spoke briefly about philosophy, Henry Potts about methods and Caroline Selai about applications. The ensuing discussion was lively and there will I am sure be follow-up gatherings. In this blog, the first of two, I summarize what… Read More »
I first started teaching medical students in 1975, having just taken up a part-time lecturing post at Charing Cross HMS. Much has changed in London over the period since, not least the mergers of most HMSs into four large multi-faculty institutions (leaving St George’s HMS as an outlier). Sociology teaching has changed too. In this… Read More »