Michael Shea Memorial Lecture

Michael Shea, a former Foreign Office diplomat and press spokesman for the Queen, was a great friend of the IFF. He played an active role in Edinburgh city life, as a trustee of the National Galleries of Scotland, a director of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, chairman of the Royal Lyceum theatre and supporter of the campaign to establish a national photographic centre at the former Royal High School building. He was also instrumental in reviving the Edinburgh Oyster Club, a dining society originally founded by Adam Smith, the spirit of which IFF has sought to emulate in our own gatherings:

‘This club met weekly; the original members of if were Mr Smith, Dr Black and Dr Hutton, and round them was soon formed a knot of those who knew how to value the familiar and social converse of these illustrious men. As all three possessed great talents, enlarged views, and extensive information, without any of the stateliness and formality which men of letters think it sometimes necessary to affect; as they were all three easily amused; were equally prepared to speak and to listen; and as the sincerity of their friendship had never been darkened by the least shade of envy; it would be hard to find an example, where every thing favourable to good society was more perfectly united, and every thing adverse more entirely excluded. The conversation was always free, often scientific, but never didactic or disputatious; and as the club was much the resort of strangers who visited Edinburgh, from any object connected with art or with science, it derived from thence an extraordinary degree of variety and interest.’

Michael loved nothing better than the stimulus of good conversation and partnered IFF in hosting Enlightenment salons in his rooms at Ramsay Garden with a host of visiting speakers. The sessions have continued since Michael’s death in October 2009. And an annual lecture has also been established in his memory – very much in the same spirit. The first lecture took place in June 2011,in partnership with the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Seeing Scotland Afresh, Sir John Elvidge

16th June 2011

Sir John Elvidge stepped down from the post of Permanent Secretary in the Scottish Government in 2010 after a long and distinguished career in the civil service. In this inaugural Michael Shea Memorial Lecture he reflects on the challenges and opportunities for Scotland in a changing world, both for how we see ourselves and how others see us. In particular, with the shift of economic power to the East, is it time to shift our attention more towards our growing relationships in Asia rather than the traditional diaspora in North America? What is it that China finds so fascinating about Scotland, for example? And what are the implications for policy and for practice of taking this broader view?

A summary and full report of this lecture are now available for download.

Loves Labours Lost, Dr Iona Heath

10th September 2012

Dr Iona Heath, President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, has long been a champion of GPs as rounded professionals, able to express and respond to the humanity in themselves and in their patients. Yet in today’s world this stance seems to operate against the grain of a more mechanistic, technical, targets, performance and efficiency driven culture. This is true not only in medicine but across all walks of professional life. In this lecture Dr Heath reflects on the constraints our modern culture imposes on professionals, why society has felt it necessary to impose them and what is lost in the process. She also suggests how we might release the fully competent professional from this straitjacket, and why it is vital to do so.

A summary and full report of this lecture are now available for download.

The Possible Scot: Realising Scotland's potential for wellbeing and recovery - Katherine Gottlieb

Our third Michael Shea Memorial Lecture was delivered by Katherine Gottlieb, President and CEO of Southcentral Foundation, Alaska. Katherine is a tribal leader and member of Old Harbor and Seldovia tribes and an honorary tribal member of the Native Village of Eklutna. She is a descendant of a Supiaq mother, Margaret and a Filipino Father, Alfred R. Quijance.

The organisation she now leads, Southcentral Foundation, has for twenty years been pioneering a new approach to enabling the health and wellbeing of the Alaskan Native population by drawing on the inner resources of its people and its culture. The healthcare system they have developed on these principles is now attracting international attention (including a growing following in Scotland). Don Berwick, a former health adviser to President Obama and head of Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent taskforce on improving the quality of care in the NHS, has observed: "This is probably the leading example of healthcare redesign in the world. The quality of care is the highest I have seen anywhere in the world, and the costs are highly sustainable. It's extraordinary."

The lecture, including the question and answer session and a vote of thanks from Sir Harry Burns, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, is availalbe to view below.

Yet the healthcare system itself is only a small, if the most visible, part of an even more remarkable story. It is actually their Family Wellness Warriors Initiative, for example, which addresses violence and abuse at community level, that brought Katherine Gottlieb to Scotland on this occasion. An excerpt from the evening's event specifically addressing the Family Wellness Warriors Initiative can be found below.

The title of the lecture recalls an earlier publication of the Scottish Council Foundation which fifteen years ago set out a vision of 'The Possible Scot' and suggested far-reaching changes in policy required to provide the conditions for the vision to be realised. Katherine Gottlieb's experience suggests that by concentrating on policy the report did not go deep enough: to realise the vision of the possible Scot we will also need to pay attention to our own cultural resources.

The slides used in the lecture are available for download separately.

Cultivate courage and happiness in breaking rules