Hodges' Model: Welcome to the QUAD

Hodges' Model: Welcome to the QUAD

Hodges' model is a conceptual framework to support reflection and critical thinking. Situated, the model can help integrate all disciplines (academic and professional). Amid news items, are posts that illustrate the scope and application of the model. A bibliography and A4 template are provided in the sidebar. Welcome to the QUAD ...

Friday, May 16, 2025

Theatre - the best way to learn ...

Pardon me, while I stay local - in Liverpool . . . 

I've always been interested in drama since school days (aged 13-14) and playing Francis Nurse in Arthur Miller's Crucible. Recent reading (inc. Theatre of the Absurd, The Shifting Point), see 'drama' - with more to follow) encouraged me to find out more. As a community mental health nurse on a visit, I've sometimes thought of this script being written as we engage with each other. Framed within  interpersonal skills and the society 'outside', there's a sense in which a screenplay is also writ large. 

The fact of whether the session is therapeutic, progressive, person-centred, structured, ethical, purposeful, has tea and custard creams ... is the drama of course.

In a way the creators of formal psychotherapies are playwrights - directors:

After all, they keep producing 'original' therapy manuals, don't they?




In the new year I noticed a community message about a theatre group Valley Theatre Group, planning a 'Living Newspaper' for a drama festival that took place last month. There is another performance next month in Liverpool, as per the edited message below:

People have been asking what’s going on and when for our Hope Street performances June 6-8th. So here’s the details.

W
e start each evening with the play about a 1930s Socialist Theatre group, “Unity”. (Cast: Peter Merrill, Ted Grant, Steve Donegan, Meggan Pye, Day Sheehan and Donna Lauder)

Then, on Friday 6 June, in the second half, we have our first Living Newspaper. This is the one that has most of the sketches submitted by outside writers and developed at the workshops. Then on Saturday 7th, second half, we have the Leverhulme group (The one that won the award at the festival) with their Living Newspaper. Finally, on Sunday 8th, in the second half, we have the last of the Living Newspapers, the one with slightly longer pieces like Scouse Man. This final one also has an original sketch from a 1930s Living Newspaper, the Munich Pact.

Tickets are on sale at the Hope Street Theatre website (link below) and from Ticket Quarter. Please come along and try to get other people along as well.  It'll be a good night's theatre! 

Thanks for all your support. The WTM team

Ticket link:  www.hopestreettheatre.com

Phone: 0344 561 0622

RCN Congress 2025 Liverpool i

... the twists and folds of debates

Repeating myself (again) but worthwhile I think(?), the past week brought my second RCN Congress. If you are new student nurse, international (Std) nurse, or nursing support worker and not engaged with a professional body, or union; do try to get involved. Don't leave it as long as I have (I joined a union as a nursing assistant). By way of a small excuse, listening this week it seems I am not the only one to leave it 'late'. Based in Liverpool (again after 2019) means there's a torrent of potential content. So where am I/We? By their nature all the debates are worthy. I have picked a few:

Discussion - Celebrating a nursing career

You can read above the main focus for the discussion. For me it prompted the following (no doubt - familiar)  reflections ...

The number of potential careers in health and social care is amazing:

Not only what the NHS (for training, education) can 'offer', but within that the number of nursing roles and specialities. The discussion inevitably drew the 'longevity' card. Students do pick on the temperature of their chosen community of practice. They recognise when they are surrounded (not literally!) by colleagues who have careers numbered in the several decades. But like a card the side that presents the occupational safe harbour from the threat posed by artificial intelligence, is countered by the seemingly relentless pressures imposed on nursing staff. The debates also revealed the pressure and negative impact of 'lived' work experiences for students and newly qualified nurses. I remember in the late 1970s early 1980s student nurses being counted as 'staff'. Have we really not progressed? I wrote 'offer' above because many students cannot get jobs once they have qualified. Not the best start to a shiny career. Having to fold, as they qualify.

Speaking of "career", can we please twist that? There is a great deal of talk - soul searching - about how on earth the (so-called) health service truly transforms itself to be health promoting and preventive. In the NHS's history perhaps there was a window of opportunity to begin in the late 1960s. Not so much a 'moonshot' as a healthshot. Now with the demographics that potential is being lost, unless this is positive way that AI can make up the shortfall? Alternately, nursing can utilise the health career, as in Hodges' model which are invariably impacted by an individual's life chances. As such there may be signs and signatures in the person's familial background? We can imagine a timeline composed of Hodges' model as 2x2 frames through a person's life, even prior to their conception and their legacy. 

More to follow . . .

Previously: 'RCN' : 'nursing' : 'power'

Please pardon the 'gambling' analogies, but we are literally asking students to gamble with their careers, financial status and well-being (life chances - no less). Should they be lost to the service, you can't blame young people. They know the logic of care, also known as demographics. They can do the maths? So who is it who can't do basic arithmetic?

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

c/o Ridgway - assimilation & accommodation

An approach to testing and teaching

'Consider the problems of acquiring new knowledge; two ideas are particularly important. The first is that existing knowledge and conceptual structures affect the way that new materials are perceived and learned; the second is that new experiences bring about changes in our knowledge and conceptual structures. These two processes are referred to as assimilation (analogous to the way in which the stomach digests food, whose later structure cannot be recognized as being similar to its earlier structure) and accommodation (analogous to the way that the pupil of the eye adjusts itself different light levels). Biological analogies make it easier to understand these concepts but leave unresolved the question of when one accommodates and when one assimilates. In general, one accommodates (i.e. changes one's conceptual structures) when fresh knowledge provides strong challenges to what is in mind; so dramatic counter-examples to currently held beliefs, or coherent patterns in the world, which cannot be explained by existing beliefs are both likely to bring about accommodation. Assimilation (interpreting new events in terms of old ideas) can be made to work when the number of counter-examples to predictions made from old beliefs are rather low. It follows, therefore, that if misconceptions are to be remedied (i.e. the mechanism of assimilation is overcome and the mechanism of accommodation stimulated) a representative sample of questions in the domain of interest is unlikely to have the desired effect because the number of cases which violate pupils' misconceptions and which therefore  might cause accommodation, will be relatively small. To foster accommodation it is necessary to provide dramatic examples which violate current conceptions and to provide these examples in quantity. Examples which are most likely to be dramatic are those in which it is obvious to pupils that the results they are obtaining using particular misconceptions are at variance with what they 'know to be true' from everyday experience.' pp.46-47.

Jim Ridgway (1988). Assessing Mathematical Attainment. Chapter 3, Using Test Results.Windsor Berkshire. NFER-NELSON. pp.40-52. [Ack. length of quote - See also: https://www.nfer.ac.uk/ ]

Thanks to Lancaster Univ. Library.

Previously 'assimilation' : 'accommodation' : 'math'

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Tanzania Health Summit (THS) Conference & Partnership

Warm greetings from the Tanzania Health Summit (THS) Conference:

1 - 3 October 2025
Julius Nyerere International Convention Center (JNICC)
Dar es Salaam

THEME:
"Harnessing Data Utilization and Technologies
to Accelerate Universal Health Coverage"

'Tanzania Health Summit is a non-profit health organization which was founded in May 2014. The aim was to promote healthcare to the underprivileged and vulnerable (70% of the population) who cannot easily access health services in the country. We focus on facilitating health information dissemination to the public taking into account that only 32.9% of the population has adequate literacy level in the country, mostly living in resource poor setting. In addition, we want to support youth (which comprise 32% of the population) to help build a more sustainable future and prevent them from high-risk behaviors and practices.'

THS is also seeking partnership: 
'I am writing to explore the possibility of partnering with your esteemed platform to feature the upcoming Tanzania Health Summit 2025, scheduled for October in Dar es Salaam. As one of the largest independent health conferences in the region, THS brings together government leaders, healthcare professionals, researchers, NGOs, and development partners to discuss key priorities in health systems strengthening and innovation.

With an active and growing portfolio of over ,2,500 participants, including decision-makers and thought leaders across Africa and globally, the Summit offers a unique platform for knowledge exchange, collaboration, and visibility.

We are seeking media partners to help us amplify our call for abstracts, participation, and partnership opportunities. In return, we are happy to offer media partners: • Logo recognition on our website and Summit program materials • Complimentary access to the conference (virtual and/or in-person) • Acknowledgment in select promotional content • Opportunities to feature your platform during media briefings or side sessions

We believe that a partnership with HIFA.ORG would be mutually beneficial in advancing shared goals of health equity, research dissemination, and stakeholder engagement.

Please let us know if this proposal would be of interest, and we would be happy to provide further details or set up a brief call to discuss how we can collaborate effectively.

Thank you for your time and continued commitment to global health.

Regards, Dr. Omary Chillo President - Tanzania Health Summit Lecturer - Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences Fellow Bernard Lown Scholars in Cardiovascular Health - Havard T. Chan School of Public Health, USA Fellow Scientist Walter Brendel Center for Experimental Medicine - Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, German Member Steering Committee - InterAcademy Partnership, Young Physician Leaders Email: chillo AT ths.or.tz '

My source: HIFA (Edited with conference & background).

Monday, May 12, 2025

'International Nurse's Day' 2025 #2 - c/o ICN & WHO

State of the World’s Nursing Report 2025


State of the World’s Nursing
Report 2025

'As the world’s nurses celebrate International Nurses Day (IND), ICN issues a rallying cry to governments around the globe for urgent nursing support, following the launch of the second World Health Organization (WHO) State of the World’s Nursing (SOWN) report.

The SOWN report is a vital assessment of the global nursing workforce in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and underscores the urgent need for bold investments in nursing to address shortages, strengthen health systems, and promote global resilience and economic stability.

The SOWN report reflects ICN’s IND 2025 report, Caring for nurses strengthens economies, and related Survey of National Nurses' Association (NNA) Presidents, reinforcing the central role of nurses in achieving global health, including Universal Health Coverage (UHC), and calling for immediate action to address long-standing challenges. The SOWN data presents a mixed picture. It highlights progress in areas such as advanced practice and nursing leadership, but indicates gravely concerning continued workforce shortages, inadequate compensation and working conditions, poor mental health support, inequities in the distribution and employment of nurses, and failures to fully enable nurses as practitioners and health care leaders.'

Continued ...

Caring for nurses strengthens economies



Caring for nurses
strengthens economies


'As we face growing health care challenges, from ageing populations and rising chronic diseases to climate-related emergencies and deepening global inequalities, the need for a strong, sustainable nursing workforce has never been greater. We cannot meet these challenges without sufficient nurses who are themselves well-cared for and supported. ICN’s International Nurses Day report reveals the severity of our current nursing shortage and well-being crisis – and the path forward. ICN’s “Caring for Nurses Agenda” provides a comprehensive roadmap for creating environments where nurses, patients, and entire health care systems can flourish.'

'International Nurse's Day' 2025 - c/o The RCN


'Today is International Nurses’ Day – a day to highlight and celebrate the incredible skill, dedication and impact of nursing.


Nursing staff like you bring so much to those you care for each day. You are there for people during their best and worst moments. You change lives every day, despite our profession facing considerable challenges.


Nursing is highly skilled and rooted in excellence. That’s why patients place their trust in you when they’re at their most vulnerable.


We see the resilience and strength it takes to do this complex, safety-critical work. So today – and every day – we say thank you.'

Text c/o The RCN and video:


Also with RCN Congress starting today ...

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Geneva Health Forum 2025 (May 20-23) - Register Now!

Dear HIFA team

Can you share in your network this information. Thanks for your help

Sincerely

[HIFA profile: Eric Comte is Executive Director, Geneva Health Forum, External Affairs Directorate, Geneva University Hospitals. eric.comte AT unige.ch ]

--------------------------------------------------

Geneva Health Forum 2025 (#GHF2025) is approaching quickly!

Bringing together global health leaders, researchers, frontline practitioners, and policymakers, the annual Geneva Health Forum event serves as a unique platform to exchange knowledge, present innovations, and advance equitable and sustainable solutions to the world’s most pressing health challenges.

We are present every year during the week of the World Health Assembly, at the end of May, to enable academic and civil society players to make their voices heard during the World Health Assembly.

This 2025 edition will focus on four thematic priorities: • Malnutrition • Climate Change and Health • Migration, Health, and Equity • Digital Health

Each theme will be addressed through evidence-based dialogue, multi-sector collaboration, and a strong emphasis on real-world practices with the potential for broader application and impact.

Please note: registration is free but required individually for each session or event. To secure your participation, visit the dedicated page for the event(s) of interest and click on the “Register” button.

To see the program and to register click on this link : https://conference2025.genevahealthforum.com/

We invite you to secure your spot for this important event by registering today!

We look forward to welcoming you to Geneva very soon!

If you have a question, contact us : contact AT genevahealthforum.com

My source: HIFA

Saturday, May 10, 2025

v Book review: 'Categories we live by'

Our lives and careers (hopefully) are full of bridges, some recognised, but not taken, others passed-by on our way (and unseen). Before I completed my training as a student mental health nurse beginning in 1977, I saw a critical bridge between the knowledge and skills on mental health nursing and general nursing. Crossing this bridge was essential (for me) to being a registered 'nurse'.

Chapter 6 on Psychodiagnostic Categories is a gift therefore. It's a gift because another bridge emerged in 1980-1981 with the Sinclair microcomputers and advent of 'home computing'. With a ZX81 there was going to be a need to navigate this space between the what is human and what is machine. Two categories that remain key concerns today.

The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - published by the American Psychiatric Association [APA] ) is on the chapter's first page, plus the patient, researchers, psychiatrists and the conditions learned during their medical education, contrasted with individual psychiatrist's clinical encounters with patients. 

Very quickly (the next page p.86) Murphy identifies the 'circumstantial factors' that cause mental illness. This is very positive as acknowledging the determinants across health is key, however framed, e.g. social determinants, economic, educational we must take into account all of them. Otherwise our assessment must be considered as incomplete, or at least lacking?

The utility of Prof. Murphy's short book is in how prior to the case studies we see the problem of definitions. And how what is determined is often a matter of convenience. This is a non-trivial matter - especially in health, economics, sciences, politics, future and peace studies: you get the idea...

Of immediate relevance in the USA is the need for categories for insurance purposes. It is an industry. Yes, indeed: 'The truth is that psychiatric patients vary in every possible way', p.86. Computers of course are well-equipped to help us in the creation, revision and publication - access to categories; with classification, taxonomy, nomenclature ... also in the mix. I was reminded of WHO's history of classification (see below) which I point students and colleagues to.

The way DSM is applied is explained and the politics duly noted (especially in Chap. 7). Resort to 'miscellaneous' is described as a sign that 'the categories are not necessarily picking out 'natural kinds'. I remember in the 90s, our PICK database on a community mental health project had Murphy's 'X' not otherwise specified. I don't think I read the word 'caseness', but there is a lot 'inside'!? References are ongoing. I wondered if there could be more recent examples, but perhaps this is in turn symptomatic of categorisation tending to be the rear car? Fuzziness is discussed. Plus, the observation that 'a few psychiatric categories may be true natural kinds, like gold or rainbow trout.' p.89. 

'Change' is a mantra for all disciplines in the NHS and global healthcare. So pragmatic to see how revision and change in the DSM can be used by - dare I mention - anti-psychiatry advocates and clinicians as to what change represents to these respective interest groups? At a time when research is experiencing funding changes, Murphy contrasts how DSM was developed for the use of clinicians to identify people with similar profiles, but they were not developed to identify (research - Nat. Inst. for Mental Health) underlying causes. Raising the determinants once again, p.91.

It is obvious but as personnel and Brits may look at private medicine with coding purposed for insurance purposes; there is within the NHS (public-funded healthcare) and psychiatry (a single domain too) within and the need by patients for diagnosis, and the welfare system. Here in the UK the rise of mental health in young adults, autism and waiting lists for assessment for ADHD are a moot point.  

Through Hodges' model we some possibly fascinating bridges, that are much less-travelled these days? In many cultures, even if we do not need permission to be sick, it needs to be recognised socially - and so politically. Society needs to deal with individuals who are ill, infirm, disabled. It's interesting then to reflect on this issue and phenomena through the lens of anthropology and medical sociology. Murphy warns to of the dangers 'of thinking of something as being the category'. In medicine a new approach is needed, as Murphy also notes. A nice bridge to chapter 7 Categories and Power.
'The case studies discussed in the previous chapters remind us that categories can be political and social tools. An old department chair of mine had the saying, "She who sets the agenda controls the meeting." We might coin a new one, "Those who make the categories control the outcomes." If your psychodiagnostic categories are made by working therapists and physicians, they might facilitate treatment- -and also benefit those practitioners. If they are made by researchers, they might not be very useful for treatment at all. And if they are made by insurance companies, all bets are off.' p.95.
Trying to take my attempts to find theoretical underpinning (category 'trying to clever') I've a diagram scribbled here. Nearby, p.100, I picked up on 'the cost of losing information or distorting reality to some degree.' Murphy picks up on the ICD Int. Classification of Diseases here. Twitter is still twitter here - thumbs up for that! There is a useful example of the impact of categories in age, pregnancy and medical attention provided.

From Chapter 8, I picked out: Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science, by Carol Kaesuk Yoon. W. W. Norton: 2009. 352 pp. £19.99/$27.95 9780393061970 | ISBN: 978-0-3930-6197-0; and checking, I remember the book's cover. Murphy's book overall highlights the convenience of our categories, the ongoing challenges and everyday conundrums they present though the remaining chapters on Species (8); Peanut Butter, Potato Chips, Almond Milk... (9); Racial Categories (10). These all contribute, still building a coherent picture, chapter 10 vital among them with a url provided (which may have changed):

https://anthropology-tutorials-nggs7.kinsta.page/adapt/adapt_4.htm


The one-drop rule (David, 1991) on p.126, is deeply troubling. Especially so given some examples of human reasoning even today. Medicine, by way of blood tests, features again. I smiled wryly reading how people from different countries have different rates of disease, e.g. 'heart disease in Scotland'. Instantly, and crackling - a deep-fried Mars bar popped into my mind. 

The things people do. You - really could read this book! 

Murphy, Gregory L. Categories we live by: how we classify everyone and everything. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2024.

Many thanks again to MIT Press for the review copy and Prof Murphy for a great read.

Previously: DSM : fuzzy : categories

Friday, May 09, 2025

UK Evening Symposium: Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining - May 14th 2025

 UK Symposium on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining 2025

Wednesday May 14th 2025 from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Location

This will be a virtual event using the Zoom video-conferencing platform. 

Outline Programme

6.00 p.m. (UK time): 'Arrival' and Introduction

Chair: Prof. Max Bramer (SGAI)

6.10 p.m. to 6.40 p.m.

Prof. Dr. Anna Fensel (Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Wageningen University, The Netherlands) BIO

Knowledge graphs, FAIR principles and generative AI for scientific discoveries in agri-food

6.40 p.m. to 6.50 p.m. Discussion and Questions

6.50 p.m. to 7.20 p.m.

Dr. Anelia Kurteva (Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK) BIO

Responsible AI through responsible data management and governance enabled by knowledge graphs

7.20 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. Discussion and Questions

7.30 p.m. Close


Please see links, e.g. 'programme' at: http://ukkdd.org.uk/2025/

My source: BCS-SGAI list

Thursday, May 08, 2025

Sets in Hodges' model

INDIVIDUAL
  |
     INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               
HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      
SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 
|
GROUP

'The emotions that we want to infer are the seven basic emotion categories.
Concretely this set is E = {Anger,  Contempt, Disgust, Fear, Happy, Sadness, Surprise}.' p.111.*

Sets - Venn diagrams

Physical obs = { Temperature, Pulse, Respiration, Blood Pressure, Gait ... }
Social = { Friends, Family, Work colleagues, Neighbours ... }

Politics { [Freedom], - Elections, Law, Policy, Government, MPs, Ministers, PM-President ... }



David Sanchez-Mendoza, David Masip, Xavier Baro, and Agata Lapedriza. Emotion Detection Using Hybrid Structural and Appearance Descriptors. In. MDAI 2013: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Modeling Decisions for Artificial Intelligence - Volume 8234 November 2013. Pages 105–116 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41550-0_10

*I am unable to double-check this reference and hope it is correct(?).

See also:
UNIVERSAL EMOTIONS: Paul Ekman Group