Simon Rae discussing poetry, medicine, and entries for the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize

There have been entries this year from Young Poets from 10 countries for the Young Poets Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine  - from Australia to Canada and the USA. 

You can now hear 2015 Young Poets Judge Simon Rae discussing medicine as a theme for poetry, and the Young Poets Prize, with award co-founders Donald Singer and Michael Hulse. 

In an audio interview Simon Rae notes the emotional response of the poets, and the authority and authenticity in their poetry. He also discusses use of imagery in the poems, and their relevance to a universal audience.

In a further discussion on YouTube, Simon reads extracts from shortlisted poems from the USA and from England.

Simon Rae

Simon Rae is a poet, biographer, broadcaster, playwright and novelist. He presented Poetry Please! on Radio 4 for many years and wrote rude poems about politicians for the Guardian newspaper for even longer.
In 1999 he won the National Poetry Competition after twice coming runner-up. His collection, Gift Horses, was published in 2006. More recently he has written three novels for younger readers, Unplayable, Keras and Medusa’s Butterfly, and his first detective story, Bodyline, comes out in spring 2015.

From Leonardo to Ebola in international entries shortlisted and commended for 2015 Hippocrates Young Poet Award

Four poets have been shortlisted for the £500 2015 Hippocrates Young Poet Prize: Daniella Cugini from
Warwick in England and US poets Alex Greenberg from New York City, Alexandra Spensley from Avon Lake, Ohio and Parisa Thepmankorn from Rockaway, New Jersey. A further 5 poets from the UK, the USA and Canada were commended. Themes of the shortlisted and commended entries ranged from a child with Ebola to Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical studies.

This International Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme by poets aged 14 to 18 years. The 2014 Prize attracted entries from Australia, Canada, Nepal, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the UK, Ukraine and the USA. The £500 (~US $750) is one of the most valuable poetry awards in the world for young poets.

This year’s poems were judged by poet and former BBC Poetry Please presenter Simon Rae.

See more about the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poet Award for Poetry and Medicine.

Coull Quartet to perform in support of the children’s cancer charity: CLIC Sargent

The internationally renowned Coull Quartet are to perform on Tuesday 15th September, 2015 in support of the children’s cancer charity CLIC Sargent at the second in a series of annual charity musical evenings organised by the Worsted Weavers Guild. The first Worsted Weavers’ charity musical evening was held in May 2014 in Ashow.

Packington Hall

The musical performance on 15th September 2015 will take place by generous permission of the Earl of Aylesford in the Pompeiian Hall at the Packington Estate in Warwickshire (around 20 minutes by road north of Kenilworth).

Register interest in attending the concert.
See more on the programme, CLIC Sargent and the Coull Quartet.

Photo of Packington Hall © Copyright David Stowell and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

As merry as the day is long? Shakespeare on seasonal mood ...

Easy to over-interpret, however when Beatrice says in Much Ado about

Winter - North of Scotland

Nothing she is " ... As merry as the day is long", interesting to consider: was this a throw-away line, a mask for her true mood, or the mirror of "... As sad as the day is short"?  We also have young prince Mamillius saying "... a sad tale's best for winter." [Winter's Tale. II.i.25]

Hippocratic writings [On Airs, Waters, and Places: ~400 BCE] recognize the potential for seasonal variation to influence patterns of disease in general. And not a new idea that people are lower in spirits in winter months: the Roman writer Jordanes refers to winter depression in his history of the Goths [Getica: 551 AD]. Describing depression as 'the blues' dates from 1741 and 'winter blues' [la dépression hivernale] describes what many people may experience. 

However SAD syndrome (Seasonal Affective Disorder) was only formally reported as such and named in 1984 by Rosenthal and colleages at the National Institute of Mental Health in the USA. Rosenthal was initially motivated by wishing to discover the cause of his own experience of depression during the dark northern US winter. His key contribution was to suggest that reduced exposure to light is a major factor causing SAD and that exposure to more light during the day may reverse features of SAD. 
 

Of note, Much Ado (as Love's Labour's Won) is currently paired by the RSC in Stratford with the bleaker Love's Labour's Lost with its unfulfilled ending, and the poem "Winter", "When icicles hang by the wall". The only "merry note" appears to be from an owl. Chilled Dick the shepherd is "blowing his nail", greasy Joan, has "... nose, red and raw...", and the "Parson (is) drowned out by coughing flock".

Shakespeare often used winter as a metaphor for hard times and troubled characters, from the direct contrast from the opening of King Richard III

"Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer ..."

to Sonnet 5

"For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where."

There is inevitable speculation about the extent to which Shakespeare was revealing on stage aspects of his own depression, or reflecting human experience, and the influence of uncertainties of life at his time.

For the present day, there are now also biochemical hypotheses for the cause of SAD - infections are common in winter and the inflammatory chemicals (cytokines) released by the body's defence cells to fight infection may have the unwanted effect of depressing mood, through toxic actions on brain cells. This may both provide new causes for depression as well as opportunities for treatment, through blocking these harmful chemicals.

Folk wisdom and health

Shakespeare and the history of heartbreak  The Lancet
 

Sadness and the four humours in Shakespeare

Shakespeare and depression

New UK initiative from 2nd March on driving and legal or illegal drugs

2nd March 2015: 
It was previously an offence to drive whilst impaired through drink or drugs.

New regulations in England and Wales, in place from 2nd March 2015, aim to reduce risk of RTAs caused by drivers who are taking illegal drugs while driving, or legal drugs which impair their ability to drive. 

It is now an offence, as it has been for alcohol, to drive with certain drugs above a specified level in the blood. Sixteen legal (see Table below) and illegal drugs are covered by the law, including cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine. 

There is now a zero tolerance approach to 8 drugs most associated with illegal use. There will also be a 'road safety risk based approach' to 8 prescribed drugs most associated with RTA risk. It remains the "driver’s responsibility to decide whether they consider their driving is, or they believe might be, impaired on any given occasion." (page 7)

Recreational drugs are well-established as causes of road traffic accidents (RTAs). DrinkAware lists several important reasons why alcohol leads to accidents. Alcohol

• affects judgement and reasoning
• slows down reactions
• upsets sense of balance and coordination
• impairs vision and hearing
• makes users lose concentration and feel drowsy.

DrinkAware note legal limits for alcohol in the breath as 35 microgram/100 
mL for England and Wales (80 milligram/100 ml in blood) and lower at 22 microgram/100 mL in breath for Scotland (50 milligram/100 ml in blood).

Cannabis use also increases driving risk in several ways and has, for example, been implicated in 1 in 4 RTAs in France.  Furthermore alcohol and cannabis are often used together and in combination can increase risk of a road traffic accident.

For recreational drugs, safety when driving may be impaired both during use and during drug withdrawal.  

Several commonly prescribed drugs are also expected to reduce alertness and lead to increased risk of road traffic accidents.

People who are having difficulty sleeping may already when awake have reduced ability to concentrate on key tasks, including driving. Poor quality of sleep combined with night sedation may  together reduce alertness further.

Other drugs may have sedative effects as a less obvious action – for example opiate like drugs used to treat pain.

Patients who are concerned about the effects of their prescribed drugs on their safety while driving should consult their pharmacist of medical adviser.

The Government's website notes that:
 'the new law provides a medical defence if you’re taking your medicine in accordance with instructions – either from a healthcare professional or printed in the accompanying leaflet – provided, of course, you’re not impaired.'

It also notes that:
'If you’re driving and you’re on prescription medicine, it may therefore be helpful for you to keep some evidence of this with you in case you’re stopped by the police.'

The following blood level limits for prescription drugs are noted to be:

‘Medicinal’ drugs (risk based approach)	Threshold limit in blood
amphetamine	250µg/L
clonazepam	50µg/L
diazepam	550µg/L
flunitrazepam	300µg/L
lorazepam	100µg/L
methadone	500µg/L
morphine	80µg/L
oxazepam	300µg/L
temazepam	1,000µg/L

UK Government's drug driving website

Drug Driving: Guidance for Healthcare Professionals

DrinkAware website

Entries closed for the 2015 Hippocrates NHS Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Entries have come from throughout the UK for the £5000 2015 Hippocrates NHS Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

Poet Rebecca Goss, author, journalist and broadcaster John Humphrys and Psychiatrist Femi Oyebode will be Judging awards in the 2015 Hippocrates Prize NHS and Open Categories.

Shortlisted and commended poets will be informed by email and information about the shortlist and the commended entries posted on the Hippocrates Prize website. The winners in the 2015 Hippocrates NHS and Open Prize will be announced by the judges on Saturday 23rd May in London at the Hippocrates Awards ceremony.

There has been a dramatic increase in international interest in recent years in the interface between medicine and the humanities in general, and in medicine and poetry in particular.  The Hippocrates Prize has attracted interest from over 60 countries since its launch in 2009.

To find out more about medicine and poetry, see our article in the Lancet, and recent features in The New Yorker and Times Higher Education. 

See updates on:
-  entries for the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize. 
-  entries for the 2015 Hippocrates Open International Prize

Entries from over 30 countries for the 2015 Hippocrates Open Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Entries for the £5000 2015 Hippocrates Open Prize for Poetry and Medicine have arrived from over 30 countries:  Australia, Belgium, Bhutan, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Holland, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Phiippines, South Africa, Romania, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the UK, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and the USA.

Poet Rebecca Goss, author, journalist and broadcaster John Humphrys and Psychiatrist Femi Oyebode will be Judging awards in the 2015 Hippocrates Prize Open and NHS Categories.

Shortlisted and commended poets will be informed by email and information about the shortlist and the commended entries posted on the Hippocrates Prize website. The winners in the 2015 Hippocrates Open Prize will be announced by the judges on Saturday 23rd May in London at the Hippocrates Awards ceremony.

There has been a dramatic increase in international interest in recent years in the interface between medicine and the humanities in general, and in medicine and poetry in particular.  The Hippocrates Prize has attracted interest from over 60 countries since its launch in 2009.

To find out more about medicine and poetry, see our article in the Lancet, and recent features in The New Yorker and Times Higher Education. 

See update on entries for the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize.

Entries from 11 countries for the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poets Award for Poetry and Medicine

Entries for the £500 Young Poets Award in the 2015 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine have arrived from Australia, Canada, England, Nepal, Nigeria, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the USA.

The 2015 Hippocrates Young Poets Award will be judged by distinguished poet Simon Rae.

Shortlisted Young Poets will be informed by email and the shortlist posted on the Hippocrates Prize website. The 2015 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize will be announced in London at the Hippocrates Awards on Saturday 23rd May.

2015 Hippocrates Young Poets judge Simon Rae

Simon Rae is a poet, biographer, broadcaster, playwright and novelist. He presented Poetry Please! on Radio 4 for many years and wrote rude poems about politicians for the Guardian newspaper for even longer. In 1999 he won the National Poetry Competition after twice coming runner-up. His collection, Gift Horses, was published in 2006. More recently he has written three novels for younger readers, Unplayable, Keras and Medusa’s Butterfly, and his first detective story, Bodyline, comes out in spring 2015.

He presented Radio 4's Poetry Please for five years and wrote a regular topical poem for the Saturday Guardian for ten years. His most recent book of poems was Gift Horses, published in 2006 by Enitharmon Press.

The winner in the 2014 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize was Conor McKee from Sidney Sussex College Cambridge for his poem I Will Not Cut for Stone.

The winner in 2013 of the inaugural Hippocrates Young Poets Prize was Rosalind Jana from Hereford Sixth Form College in England, for her poem Posterior Instrumented Fusion for Adolescent Scoliosis.

There has been a dramatic increase in international interest in recent years in the interface between medicine and the humanities in general, and in medicine and poetry in particular.  The Hippocrates Prize has attracted interest from over 60 countries since its launch in 2009.

To find out more about medicine and poetry, see our article in the Lancet, and recent features in The New Yorker and Times Higher Education.  

See update on entries for the 2015 Hippocrates Open Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

2015 International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine - deadline 31st January

Poetry and medicine features as the theme for an excellent review by Alastair Gee in this week's issue

of the New Yorker. His article ranges from discussion of historical use by Arab physician Avicenna of poetry to aid learning in his treatise medicine – to current interest by medical journals in publishing poetry on their areas of special interest.

The Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine features in the article, at £5000 (~USD 7,500) the most valuable international award in the world for an unpublished poem.

Entries have already been received from 20 countries, from Australia to the USA, for the 2015 awards, for which the closing date is 12 midnight GMT on 31st January.

There is also a further £5000 first prize for the Hippocrates NHS prize for the poetry and medicine and £500 for the Young Poets award.

Judges for the 2015 Hippocrates Prize Open and NHS Categories are Poet Rebecca Goss, author, journalist and broadcaster John Humphrys and Psychiatrist Femi Oyebode.

Enter the Hippocrates Awards online

More about the Hippocrates Awards

Read the New Yorker article

What works as healthy lifestyle for losing excess weight?

A good time to get weight in trim? New Year is a familiar time for people to make resolutions and aims to improve lifestyle.
However advice on how to lose excess weight may be confusing and contradictory. Here is some helpful information on why overweight may be unhealthy and what works to help to reduce overweight.

Why bother about overweight?
Excess weight increases the burden of cardiovascular risk (high blood pressure, raised cholesterol and diabetes mellitus); causes premature ageing of arteries, leading to heart attacks, strokes and other serious disorders of the heart, brain and circulation; contributes to risk of sleep dusturbance and sleep apnoea syndrome; causes premature joint ageing with arthritis; non-alcholic fatty liver disease is the commonest cause worldwide of liver damage; and increased risk of cancers - weight gain and overweight estimated to be linked to 1 in 5 cancers.
People who have no difficulty in maintaining normal weight may find it difficult to understand the challenges. For those who are currently overweight, the challenges in regaining a more healthy weight include beating the psychological, physical and social addiction to causes of overweight, and resisting peer pressure.

Getting started
Importants steps on the path to reducing excess weight include being ready to think about action, to think about taking action and to prepare to take action. That might mean telling friends and family you are serious about losing weight, and to seek whatever help may work - e.g.  family doctor or nurse or other health professional, and support groups for the overweight.

What works? 
What works best is to combine increased activity with reduced energy intake – much more effective than either approach on its own.
Smaller portion size, cutting down on processed foods and increasing exercise are the big 3 factors that help. Keep a weight chart and if possible find a friend with whom to lose overweight. Wear a belt. Pace your eating and drink water with your food. Eat regular small meals. Avoid snacking, Research evidence suggests that successful measures include recording weight regularly, knowing the approximate energy intake of what you eat, and regular activity.
It is also clear that insight into the personal health risks of overweight provide extra incentive to lose weight. Better of course to reduce excess weight before serious clinical effects of overweight occur.
There are many support groups and diet plans available to order, often at high cost.

Research evidence suggests that success in maintaining weight loss is associated with clear strategies for coping with life stresses and with 'continued adherence to diet and exercise strategies, low levels of depression and disinhibition, and medical triggers for weight loss'. In contrast, unsuccessful weight maintainers are erratic or inconsistent in recording their weight and being vigilant in keeping to healthy types and amounts of food and in continuing regular activity.
Once overweight people have maintained a weight loss for 2-5 years, the chances of longer-term success in maintaining a healthy weight are much greater.
 
Apps
 There an increasing variety of 'apps' for smartphones and PCs, that reinforce the combined impact of healthier dietary intake and maximising exercise. Many are free, with myfitnesspal an excellent example. These and other free lifestyle apps are like your personal health bank. The more active you are, the more energy balance you have towards losing weight, the more you eat, the less reserves in your health bank.

Updated from an earlier post in December 2011 © DRJ Singer
@HealthMed