…your knee bone's connected to your thigh bone...

Who said this in the Guardian this week?
“I am arguing for a move in healthcare towards a more renaissance time, when there were not the clear barriers between art and medicine.”

Find out by clicking on the Kneebone above...and with a very feeble excuse to link to Dennis Potter, please enjoy the doctors summing up the patients needs below.

The blog will be added too and subtracted from on an ad hoc basis over the next 2 weeks as I am working out of the country. More of that soon, but for now, day 1 - breakfast out and an oh-so-obvious cover on a weekend supplement! Apologies. When I come to Australia I always meet really interesting, dedicated, free thinkers when it comes to end of life care, so after I got past the sharks in today's paper, it was interesting to read about Philip Nitschke's lawyer who in fact, has terminal cancer. Peter Nugent is defending the GP, humanist and euthanasia campaigner who was suspended from practicing as a GP by the Australian Medical Board earlier this year. That Nitschke is being defended by someone whose own life is limited by terminal illness, is a powerful symbol. It will be interesting to see how the trial, which starts on Monday, progresses  The big question here, is who knows best: doctors or competent, well-informed adults? Click on my breakfast option for more on this story.

HUMAN
This picture, the earliest known photograph to include a recognisable human form, was taken in Paris in 1838 by Louis Daguerre. The human in question is standing in the bottom-left of the photograph, on the pavement by the curve in the road. He is having his boots shined.

I recently shared a funding opportunity for cultural exchange with Japan, this week’s tantalising tidbit is India. Go on - let your imagination run wild and tailor a proposal to an arts/health exchange.

New India Cultural Exchange Fund 
A new £1.5million lottery fund will be available in early 2015 to build creative connections between the people of England and India. The new funding will provide English artists and arts organisations with opportunities to develop collaborations and cultural exchanges with their Indian counterparts. The scheme will be run by British Council and the Arts Council England and will give grants of £15,000-£100,000 to support projects that:
Promote creative collaborations Showcase the best of UK and Indian arts across a range of art forms and activities; etc. Applications open in January 2015 and there will be a second round of funding in 2016 with activity expected to peak during 2017 to mark the 70th anniversary of Indian independence.
Read more at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/secretary-of-state-announces-india-cultural-exchange-fund