Author: CauseHealth

CauseHealth - Causation, Complexity and Evidence in Health Sciences

New article by CauseHealth collaborator Roger Kerry

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by Elena Rocca

Our friend and collaborator Roger Kerry co-authored the article “Time, space and form: Necessary for causation in health, disease and intervention?” published in this month’s issue of the journal Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. Continue reading “New article by CauseHealth collaborator Roger Kerry”

#CauseHealthPT Holds Court: The Beginning of The Beginning

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By Roger Kerry

How and why has this philosophy project got itself so involved with physiotherapy? The background to the CauseHealth project is essentially that the world of health care is not straightforward, and indeed is characterised by complexity and context-sensitivity. Physiotherapy is a profession where these characteristics are easily visible, and so serves as a great ‘testing ground’ for the philosophical work being done by CauseHealth. This in turn helps the project better understand its ideas. In doing this, physiotherapy itself gets a deep and critical understanding of the job it does, and of the scientific research which informs it. We are now symbiotic! Continue reading “#CauseHealthPT Holds Court: The Beginning of The Beginning”

Are physiotherapists the new philosophers? CauseHealth 2016

Reflections from the CauseHealth Physio conference in Nottingham in May, guest blog.

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260 Here’s where it happened: The Galleries of Justice Museum, in the trendy Lace Market area of Nottingham

I can’t remember why I raced to book a ticket to the CauseHealth Conference in Nottingham in May.  It might have been because it only cost £35 (lunch included!), it might have been because lots of keen-minded people I follow on twitter were excited about it (sports physio Adam Meakins, Neil Maltby, Chews Health…), it might be because the word philosophy excites my brain, but whatever the reasons I found myself walking into an old wood-panelled courtroom, (usually a museum) in Nottingham’s Lace Market, not having a clue what it was going to be about.  All I knew was that I suspected it was at the cutting edge of health care, particularly for manual therapists.  And I was right.  It was intense, it was highly learned, it was powerful and I couldn’t take…

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Why do we care about the foundations of evidence-based medicine (“EBM”)?

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Photo via Latvian Ethnographic Open Air Museum

by Samantha Copeland

CauseHealth has been pushing buttons all over the place, lately, as we pursue our goal of critiquing current frameworks in EBM by proposing some deep questions about its ontology*. We aren’t the only ones—at recent events, we have found people from various communities in medicine are ready and willing to raise and engage some tough questions, about what evidence is and how it might best be used. Reflecting on two recent events we attended, in this blog post I want to think a little bit about the relationship between understanding the foundations of EBM, and putting the ideals of EBM to work for us in medical practice. Continue reading “Why do we care about the foundations of evidence-based medicine (“EBM”)?”

PhD thesis on serendipity wins award

Samantha Marie Copeland
Samantha Marie Copeland

Philosopher and CauseHealth Postdoc, Samantha Copeland, has won one of two Best Thesis Awards from Dalhousie University for her doctoral thesis The Case of the Triggered Memory: Serendipitous Discovery and the Ethics of Clinical Research. She has also been selected as their nominee for the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies Distinguished Dissertation Award in Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for 2016. Congratulations! Read more about her work on serendipity and get the full text version of the thesis.

Metaphysics in Science – It’s there whether we like it or not

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Fredrik Andersen is PhD-student at NMBU and a CauseHealth collaborator

There is metaphysics in science, but not everyone acknowledges this. A recent paper by Fredrik Andersen and Jonas R. Becker Arenhart, published in Metaphilosophy, argues that Physics is no exception and that all successful scientific research presupposes metaphysics. Continue reading “Metaphysics in Science – It’s there whether we like it or not”

CauseHealth events in Nottingham and Madrid

It is an exciting spring for the CauseHealth project. In January, we organised the N=1 workshop here at NMBU. And in May and June our partner institutions will host a conference in Nottingham and a one-day symposium in Madrid. Continue reading “CauseHealth events in Nottingham and Madrid”

You’re History (Hasta la Vista, baby)

By Neil Maltby — author of the becomingmorehuman blog, a physiotherapist in the UK, and a CauseHealth collaborator

She seemed straight forward enough on assessment. 45yrs old. Sudden pain onset from a seemingly innocuous movement many years ago. Episodic but progressive back pain since. Almost full range of movement. No significant neurological, inflammatory, vascular or other suspicious signs. One thing did sit in my mind though. It was as I asked her to reach down to the floor. Continue reading “You’re History (Hasta la Vista, baby)”

N=1 Reflections Roundup

by Samantha CopelandDSC_0033

I’d like to shout out a hearty thank you for the last two weeks’ contributions from the
participants in our January workshop, N=1: Causal Reasoning and Evidence for Clinical Practice! A diverse group of participants has given us a variety of things to think about, compliments to savour, and tough questions to ponder—thank for making February interesting too.
Continue reading “N=1 Reflections Roundup”