About Melanie…

Dr Melanie Jansen is an intensive care specialist, clinical ethicist, and poet. Melanie is interested in everything to do with intensive care: whole-body pathophysiology; intense team work; critical decision making; machines that go beep; and the care of humans in all their raw and complex beauty. Melanie has developed and worked in clinical ethics services since 2011. She believes that ethics weaves through everything we do, and that clinicians should be equipped with skills to navigate both the scientific and ethical aspects of their work. In 2017, Melanie completed a Churchill Fellowship to research ways to enrich and inform development of paediatric clinical ethics services, including how best to harness the power of the arts and humanities for clinical practice. Melanie has written poems for as long as she can remember. In recent years, her poems have been recognised in national and international competitions. She is currently working on a collection of poetry reflecting on work in the intensive care unit.

Melanie has a Master of Arts in Philosophy in which she wrote her major papers on rationing in intensive care, and the ethics of child protection. She is a PhD candidate researching collaborative complex decision making in intensive care. She hopes to fuse clinical and scientific expertise with philosophical rigour and creativity to develop a pedagogy for complex decision making skills in healthcare.

Melanie loves to travel and is endlessly fascinated by wine and the people and places that make it. She loves to breathe in nature. No matter where she is, the best strategy for reconnaissance is an early morning run. Life is short – throw your arms around it.