Claire Hooker

My fields of Health and Medical Humanities are fairly new, swiftly developing areas that seek to reorients health care to what really matters to patients, their clinicians and their families: their dignity, their grief, their ability to live and work with integrity and make a positive difference in the world. For clinicians, I explore ways to build positive workplace cultures and practices, where clinicians can flourish at work. Good healthcare workplaces form the basis for clinicians to offer empathy and dignity for patients. For patients and practitioners, I support creative arts approaches that work with the social determinants of health – inclusion, empowerment, good quality relationships – to transform their health care. I develop critical approaches to the politics and ethics of infection that underpin the healthcare practice I support. A key part of this work is communication, and I have for many years specialised in research in how to communicate effectively about infection risks.