Ms Giskin Day

Giskin Day qualified originally as a botanist in South Africa, before working in science publishing and at the Science Museum in London. Committed to broadening the education of science students, she has been involved in humanities teaching to STEMM students at Imperial College for nearly two decades, chiefly in Science Communication and Medical Humanities. As field leader for 'Science, Culture and Society' she leads a teaching team of 20 staff to deliver a suite of about 30 interdisciplinary courses available to students from all faculties across the College. She champions the intrinsic and instrumental value of student engagement with scholarship in the humanities. Impact of work Giskin devised, developed and delivered an acclaimed Medical Humanities course which focuses on experiential and creative engagement with the arts. Many students report that the course has had a transformative impact on their learning and that it has reignited their passion for medicine. It has been described as 'the gold standard' nationally and internationally for Medical Humanities at the undergraduate level. The inclusion of playful elements in the curriculum, such as a physical version of Medical Monopoly, played across museums and galleries in London, has helped to introduce students to extraordinary resources, encouraging them to use different forms of evidence and to enhance their imaginative capacities. Plans for the future Giskin delivers about 20 creative workshops and talks at conferences and training events every year and views these as opportunities to also enhance her own expertise and professional development. She is currently researching the rhetoric of gratitude: an ethnographic project that she hopes will lead to recommendations for boosting morale amongst beleaguered healthcare professionals. Her immediate plans are to collaborate with international colleagues in the medical humanities to devise a 'recipe book' of creative teaching activities. She is also working on an exciting new intercalated BSc course to be offered for the first time in 2017-18 in Medical Sciences with Humanities, Philosophy and Law. Giskin was awarded the Imperial College Presidents Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Excellence in Teaching in 2015.