Conversations about Arts, Humanities and Health

About Conversations about Arts, Humanities and Health

This podcast is part of the project 'Conversations about Arts, Humanities and Health', a series of free online events where scholars, health professionals, and the public discuss how arts and humanities can inform healthcare. Hosted by the University of Glasgow, these conversations seek to develop meaningful dialogue and connection between humanities and medicine. Each one of these events will form the basis of an episode of the podcast. The project is a joint initiative by Prof Ian Sabroe (University of Sheffield) and Dr Dieter Declercq (University of Glasgow).

Publisher

Conversations about Arts, Humanities and Health

Category

health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

14 Apr 2021

Latest episode

7 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

32 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Sept 2026

   Episode 32 - Why doctors write /w Dr Danielle Ofri

   Co-hosts Ian Sabroe and Dieter Declercq will with Danielle about Why Doctors Write, alongside the encounter between arts and medicine, and the doctor-patient connection. Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, is one of the foremost voices in the medical world today, shining an unflinching light on the realities of healthcare and speaking passionately about the doctor patient relationship. She writes about medicine and the doctor-patient connection. Her writing appears in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Atlantic, as well as the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. Danielle Ofri is a founder and Editor-in-Chief of Bellevue Literary Review (https://danielleofri.com/blr/), the first literary journal to arise from a medical setting, now an award-winning, independent nonprofit literary arts organization. She is a primary care internist at Bellevue Hospital and a clinical professor of medicine at NYU. Her lectures to medical and general audiences are renowned for her use of dramatic stories (and avoidance of PowerPoint). Her essays have been selected for Best American Essays (twice) and Best American Science Writing, by Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, and Susan Orlean. Ofri is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2023 Davies Scholar Award from the American College of Physicians, the 2022 National Humanism in Medicine Medal from the Gold Foundation, the 2020 Global Listening Legend Award, and has been awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters. Ofri is a “Master” of the American College of Physicians, and has received the McGovern Award from the American Medical Writers Association for “preeminent contributions to medical communication.” Danielle Ofri has given TED talks on Deconstructing Perfection (http://tedmed.com/talks/show?id=309134) and Fear: A Necessary Emotion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yToDJlfa_Tc), and has also performed stories for the Moth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h5lkiizC7M). She is featured in the documentaries Why Doctors Write (https://www.whydoctorswrite.org/) and White Coat Rebels (https://docs.afi.com/2021/movies/white-coat-rebels/). An ever-struggling student of the cello, she’s hoping to someday complete the ever-uphill slog through all 36 movements of the Bach cello suites.

2. 

   23 Apr 2026

   Episode 31 - Personalised and public health /w Cathy Shrank, Jason Gill and Phil Withington

   Co-hosts Ian Sabroe and Dieter Declercq talk with Cathy, Jason and Phil about Personalised and public health: learning (and not learning) from the past. Our guests share a research interest around public health, personalised health, the politics of health, but have different disciplinary training. During the conversation, we tease out some of the similarities but also differences between past and present, and a humanities versus biomedical approach. We explore what can we learn from each other across disciplinary approaches, and from the past to inform approaches to population health today. Cathy Shrank is Professor of Tudor and Renaissance Literature at the University of Sheffield. Her research ranges from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth century, and moves between poetry, prose, and drama. It also includes less obviously “literary” forms of writing, such as medical or educational works. That range is exemplified by the monograph on dialogue that she is currently completing for Oxford University Press. Jason Gill is Professor of Cardiometabolic Health at the University of Glasgow. His research focuses on the role of lifestyle-related factors (principally physical activity, diet and sleep) in the prevention and management of cardiometabolic diseases, and on ethnicity and health. This work encompasses epidemiology; biological mechanisms underpinning cardiometabolic disease risk; and development of realistic and sustainable lifestyle interventions. He also established the MSc in Sport and Exercise Science & Medicine at the University of Glasgow, has contributed to national clinical and physical activity guidelines, is an editor at several journals, and plays an active role in public engagement and communication of science. Phil Withington is Professor of History at the University of Sheffield. A specialist in early modern history (1500-1800), he has a long-term interest in medical humanities in general and the history of intoxicants and addiction in particular. He is currently writing a book on England’s first psychoactive revolution and running a project on craft alcohol and urban environments.

3. 

   20 Feb 2026

   Episode 30 - Appliedness /w Martina King

   Co-hosts Ian Sabroe and Dieter Declercq talk with Martina about appliedness and medical education, medical humanities and (the lack of) defined disciplinary identity, and how the medical humanities interact with multiple academic disciplines in research and teaching.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

2,555,969

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 44 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

38

Social presence

0

YouTube

93

Engagement

32