Uploaded January 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Join GP and author Gavin Francis in conversation with philosopher Havi Carel and oncologist Sam Guglani. They’ll be discussing their personal and professional experiences of living with illness, getting better and the importance of convalescence. This event is inspired by Gavin Francis’s new book, ‘Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence’
About your contributors
Sam Guglani
(he/him)
Facilitator
Sam Guglani is a consultant oncologist in Cheltenham, specialising in the management of lung and brain tumours. He is director of Medicine Unboxed, which illuminates the challenges and wonders of medicine through the arts. Sam also has master’s degrees in Ethics (Keele, 2009) and Creative Writing (Oxford, 2014). He is a published poet and writes for the Lancet. His debut novel, ‘Histories’, was published in 2017.
Gavin Francis
Speaker
gavinfrancis.com
@gavinfranc on Twitter
Gavin Francis has worked across four continents as a surgeon, emergency physician, medical officer with the British Antarctic Survey and latterly as a GP; he has described the pandemic response of 2020 as the most intense period of his 20-year career in medicine. He’s the author of the Sunday Times bestseller ‘Adventures in Human Being’, which was a BMA Book of the Year, and ‘Shapeshifters’. His books have won the SMIT Scottish Book of the Year Award, the Saltire Award for Non-Fiction and been shortlisted for the Ondaatje and Costa Prizes. He also writes for the Guardian, The Times, the London Review of Books and Granta. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and children.
Havi Carel
(she/her)
Speaker
Havi Carel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol. She recently completed a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award, the ‘Life of Breath’. She was awarded the Health Humanities’ Inspiration Award 2018 for this work. Havi is the author of ‘Illness’ (2008, 2013, 2018), shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and of ‘Life and Death in Freud and Heidegger’ (2006). Her third monograph, ‘Phenomenology of Illness’, was published by Oxford University Press in 2016. She was selected as a ‘Best of Bristol’ lecturer in 2016.
Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/wellcomecollection
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/explorewellcome
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Join GP and author Gavin Francis in conversation with philosopher Havi Carel and oncologist Sam Guglani. They’ll be discussing their personal and professional experiences of living with illness, getting better and the importance of convalescence. This event is inspired by Gavin Francis’s new book, ‘Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence’
About your contributors
Sam Guglani
(he/him)
Facilitator
Sam Guglani is a consultant oncologist in Cheltenham, specialising in the management of lung and brain tumours. He is director of Medicine Unboxed, which illuminates the challenges and wonders of medicine through the arts. Sam also has master’s degrees in Ethics (Keele, 2009) and Creative Writing (Oxford, 2014). He is a published poet and writes for the Lancet. His debut novel, ‘Histories’, was published in 2017.
Gavin Francis
Speaker
gavinfrancis.com
@gavinfranc on Twitter
Gavin Francis has worked across four continents as a surgeon, emergency physician, medical officer with the British Antarctic Survey and latterly as a GP; he has described the pandemic response of 2020 as the most intense period of his 20-year career in medicine. He’s the author of the Sunday Times bestseller ‘Adventures in Human Being’, which was a BMA Book of the Year, and ‘Shapeshifters’. His books have won the SMIT Scottish Book of the Year Award, the Saltire Award for Non-Fiction and been shortlisted for the Ondaatje and Costa Prizes. He also writes for the Guardian, The Times, the London Review of Books and Granta. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and children.
Havi Carel
(she/her)
Speaker
Havi Carel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol. She recently completed a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award, the ‘Life of Breath’. She was awarded the Health Humanities’ Inspiration Award 2018 for this work. Havi is the author of ‘Illness’ (2008, 2013, 2018), shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and of ‘Life and Death in Freud and Heidegger’ (2006). Her third monograph, ‘Phenomenology of Illness’, was published by Oxford University Press in 2016. She was selected as a ‘Best of Bristol’ lecturer in 2016.
Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/wellcomecollection
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/explorewellcome
See us on Instagram: instagram.com/wellcomecollection
