Some January highlights

In case you missed these notices during January, here are a few new things that you might be interested in:

Breath

A beautiful short video about breath from The Mercadantes, the husband-and-wife filmmakers Daniel and Katina Mercadante in California.  The film explores the human breath and its innumerable forms – from the first gasping cries of a newborn to the sighed relief of a well-earned chance to rest.

New book by Felix Guattari

A new book edited by Gary Genosko collecting some of French philosopher Félix Guattari's work during his frequent visits to Japan in the 1980s.  Guattari frequently visited Japan during the 1980s and organized exchanges between French and Japanese artists and intellectuals. His immersion into the “machinic eros” of Japanese culture put him into contact with media theorists such as Tetsuo Kogawa and activists within the mini-FM community (Radio Home Run), documentary filmmakers (Mitsuo Sato), photographers (Keiichi Tahara), novelists (Kobo Abe), internationally recognized architects (Shin Takamatsu), and dancers (Min Tanaka). From pachinko parlors to high-rise highways, alongside corporate suits and among alt-culture comrades, Guattari put himself into the thick of Japanese becomings during a period in which the bubble economy continued to mutate. This collection of essays, interviews, and longer meditations shows a radical thinker exploring the architectural environment of Japan’s “machinic eros.”

Buy a copy of this new book here.

How GPs should plan care for people with long-term conditions

The constraints of a 10-minute GP appointment mean that there is little time to treat a patient with multiple health problems. This RCGP video explains how care planning, a holistic, long-term approach to delivering patient care, aims to help people take more control over their own health - with the support of their GP practice - and stay well, and out of hospital.  Watch this video explaining how it might be otherwise from The Guardian Comment.

Three evolving thoughts about flipped learning

Flipped classrooms are becoming popular in health education.  Students ideally become more active and take more control of their learning.  This post by Robert Talbert sketches his reflections on the process:

"While specifications grading continues to unfold in class, I’m also still using and refining the flipped learning model. Recently I had time to reflect on how I’m implementing flipped learning in my classes, and I noticed that some of my thoughts on flipped learning have evolved over the last few years, including some breaks from things I’ve written here on the blog. Here are three of those thoughts that stood out for me."

Crisis in compassionate care

Compassionate care "involves work with bodies (body work) and this is complex and expensive to organise on the labour market, something exacerbated by the involvement of private companies, seeking profitability."

Rachel Lara Cohen is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at City University London. Her research explores the lived experience of work and employment, especially non-standard work and in this brilliant post she discusses the complexities of compassionate care.