Dr Katie Amiel
Katie is a GP working in Hackney, London. She is a member of the Royal College of General Practioners’ (RCGP) Wellbeing Committee, is a trained teacher of MBCT (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy) and has run many workshops, courses and training events on health professional mental health, wellbeing and compassion including work for the Practitioner Health Programme.
She founded The Bigger Picture, a collaborative project with the RCGP and the Faculty of the History and Philosophy of Medicine and Pharmacy, Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. This aims to improve health professional wellbeing and patient care by offering a wider perspective including the arts and humanities and give opportunities for healthcare staff to develop, showcase and celebrate their creative talents. Its key themes of connection, compassion, creativity, curiosity and contemplation are being explored through inspiring talks, events, workshops, exhibitions, a literary festival and this anthology.
Deborah Alma
Deborah is a UK poet who teaches Creative Writing at Keele University. She has worked using poetry with people with dementia, in hospice care, with vulnerable women’s groups and with children in schools. For the last 8 years she has run a project called the Emergency Poet offering poetry on prescription from her vintage ambulance.
She is editor of Emergency Poet- An Anti-Stress Poetry Anthology; The Everyday Poet- Poems to Live By; #Me Too – Rallying Against Sexual Harassment- A Women’s Poetry Anthology, and Ten Poems of Happiness. Her first, full collection, Dirty Laundry is published by Nine Arches Press. She co-founded the world’s first walk-in Poetry Pharmacy in Shropshire with her partner the poet James Sheard in 2017.