Hello, 

welcome to the eighth issue of the Flourishing Spaces Newsletter~ a small offering to pause within the holiday season.

Firstly, we would like to thank you for signing up to receive this gentle thread. We aim to connect a growing community committed to re-humanising medicine and education through creativity, reflection, and care.

This isn’t about adding more noise to your inbox but some encouragement, a signpost to something meaningful, and a glimpse into what’s unfolding in our shared landscape.

All previous newsletters can be read here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

NEWS FROM THE FIELD

In dialogue with Prof Sarah Willen, critical anthropologist at University of Connecticut and her anthropology students, we explored Flourishing Spaces through a creative and critical lens. The anthropology students posed such thoughtful questions to some of our writings on flourishing spaces. Elle Tallgren, our newsletter editor offered a compelling account of creative enquiry experience as a medical student, we explored lived experience through postcards and we co-created a poem on care. The session revealed a striking commonality: students everywhere are craving connection and the Human Dimension.

UPCOMING EVENTS

INTRODUCING

FLOURISHING SPACES TEAM

I began my academic career as a forensic linguistics researcher, developing machine-learning models for detecting plagiarism and academic ghostwriting. The only sensitivity I was known for was the machine-learning models and algorithms I created to catch cheats. Yet as I developed as an education developer promoting inclusive practice and social justice, I felt the dissonance between treating people as data points and honouring them as authors of lived experience. The turning point came while supporting medical students who surveyed opinions from peers about belonging and empowerment on an MBBS - only to be told their insights and experiential tales lacked statistical significance. 

Working as a Flourishing Spaces researcher, educator and scholar has given me an opportunity to grow through creating, learn through sharing and ultimately speak positive truth to power.

I spent the last 5 weeks in my home country, Finland, attending a psychiatry internship. I had the privilege of living with two of my sisters, and a precious routine we formed together was sharing morning tea during the weekends and doing an “appreciation round”. I learned about this concept from my partner, who had recently discovered it via a podcast. The idea is based on Rhonda Byrne’s book The Magic, and it invites you to fill out the following sentence “ I appreciate…because…Thank you, thank you, thank you”. It can be something that has already happened, or moments of manifestation where you appreciate something that you believe has happened in the future. With our cups of tea, we went around and each said two things we appreciate with the shared thank you’s at the end. These moments turned into beautiful conversations about the thoughts we have but may not otherwise share unless there is an invitation for them.