Our two reviews for this week span the personal and public faces of health and well-being. Gabriella used the Colour Reflection Reading exercise to contemplate whether yellow is in fact 'her' colour, while Margaret gained a solid background in the current state of Indigenous health in rural and remote Australia.
Yellow? Green? Blue? I was not particularly sure how Colour Your Life was going to give me insight and what colour reflection reading was meant to do. I have never thought of colours as meaning anything in particular apart from having a favourite.
Colour Your Life works on the premise that ‘colour has power’ and incorporates an exercise called the Colour Reflection Reading. This includes eight colours and three basic forms of shapes being square, triangle and circle. The reader is to choose three colours which then become a representation of their own qualities, depending in which order the colours were chosen. With my chosen colour yellow in first position, it made me reflect if I was actually that “person who has a strong tendency to be controlling”, when after reading through other colour characteristics, I actually wanted to be ‘another colour’ (which was probably not the right thing to do).
Colour Your Life then went further into the psychology of colours and the physical, emotional and mental qualities that each represents. It even covered what the colours we wear in our day-to-day life represent, to which colours we should wear to speed up recoveries. Although some chapters of Colour Your Life were easy to read, I found other chapters made this book heavy and confusing at times. Overall, although yellow was not a clear depiction of what I wanted for myself, it will still remain my favourite.
Author I haven’t read before, Non-fiction, 158.1 SUN
Margaret Morris reviewed Australia's Rural, Remote and Indigenous Health by Janie Dade Smith
Now in its third edition with eBook access, this is a practical guide to the delivery of health care in rural and remote Australia. It examines rural health services provision and questions bureaucratic systems. It explores opportunities for change and puts real faces onto the rural health landscape through innovative storytelling techniques, historical accounts, and real life experience. This text draws on the personal experiences of rural practitioners with historical accounts.
It is an easy to read work that tackles difficult issues such as racism, culture, Indigenous health, the workforce and social capital. It weighs these issues against the impacting statistics, politics, policies and practices in a primary health care framework, in both a practical and user-friendly way. It also discusses the economic, social and political forces that shape health care in rural and remote Australia.
This provocative and heartfelt book aids rural health students, practitioners, policy makers, and educators from many disciplines to find their way through the rural and remote health care system. Videos of interviews and presentations support the first eight chapters. It also includes two new chapters on clinical practice. Based on a social justice and social determinants framework, this book questions the foundation of how we address health in Australia.
The black cockatoo is a fitting cover image representing the resilience and communal life of rural and remote Australia. Whilst rural, remote and indigenous health work can be enormously rewarding, it is important that the health workforce is adequately prepared for the adventures and realities that they will face. This book aims to meet that need.
Australian author, non-fiction, 362.1042570994 SMI 2016
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