Comets, holistic care and peripheral vision

Comet Hartley 2 is still bright and yet throughout its visit by Earth quite diffuse, so I have yet to try to find it with my binoculars. To effectively use binoculars, a telescope (or even a microscope) and enjoy the astronomical delights (especially as Councils save money and switch off street lights) it helps to develop your peripheral vision.

Nursing, medicine and social care calls for its own kind of peripheral vision. Peripheral vision that nonetheless enables us to really see. It is ironic that in order to see the big picture that includes the person, that allows us to coherently assess, plan, deliver and evaluate person-centred care we must look off-center.



Comet image source: http://maineastro.com/2010/10/binocular-comet-now-high-in-the-sky/

Holistic interferometry

Since Galileo first pointed a telescope at the moon, the instrument has evolved with bigger lenses and mirrors. Despite additional advances in optics, physical constraints eventually prompted development in other directions. Rather than one optical or radio telescope, why not combine the inputs of several, tens, hundreds... ?

The health career model can act as an interferometer
for health across the care spectrum*.

We desperately need holistic interferometry for the personal, social, community (urban, rural and nomadic), national and global health care challenges we face.

* Which includes much of the electromagnetic.

Links:

Interferometry: Space.com

Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI)

Allen Telescope Array

SETI@home

Seti Inst.

LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory

Image source: Seti League
http://www.setileague.org/array2k/array2kb.jpg

Hodges' model: asking for a fight while searching for the cosmic background holistic radiation

There is an awful lot to fight for at the moment; what with the countdown to Copenhagen and the ongoing struggles of the new economic butterfly from its cocoon - its life plainly in the balance - even before its wings have dried.

Meanwhile, in its four quiet corners Hodges' model is also asking for a fight. Now don't panic, the fight in prospect is an orderly, disciplined affair as per Queensberry Rules(?).

Disciplines new and old seek structures upon which to base their questions, hypotheses, methods and theories. This explains in part the structure of Hodges' model. In facilitating holistic and integrated care through:

• personal and group reflection
• cross curricula application
• socio-technical perspectives
• bridging the theory - practice gap
• ....
  

Hodges' model is actually asking us to if not tear down the axes, then at least render them irrelevant.

In the same way (well almost) we now recognise new 'super' structures in cosmology, in time we may realise new semantic - ontological structures across and between the existing humanistic - mechanistic domains of h2cm.

Additional links:
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNFCC Copenhagen clocks

Image source: Barnabu - Google Earth add-ons and visualizations. KML, SketchUp and more.

Good things come to those who wait...:

Being interested in astronomy I've used this theme in quite a few blog posts. Hodges' model cannot only act as a repository for a constellation of ideas - the model is up there in the constellations - in several forms including - The Southern Cross, Crux.

I thought about the Milky Way, but was disappointed about the scope for finding h2cm there on two counts:

1. we (and more especially our children) can hardly see the Milky Way such is the light pollution;
2. the Milky Way does not reflect Hodges' model - which axis would it be?

Then I realised:

One day, there will be two bands of star dust across the night sky:

Andromeda is heading our way

It just goes to show you... good things come to those who wait...

Image source: The Southern Cross

Additional links:

International Year of Astronomy

Kepler Star Wheel