Happy birthday to Corpus!

Sue Wootton

Corpus: Conversations about medicine and life is ten years old! When Barbara Brookes and I launched this site in May 2016, our idea was to open a space dedicated to kōrero about health and medicine, a ‘digital salon’ that would welcome people from all walks of life to share their ways of knowing about anything related to these concepts. What strikes me, as I browse back through a decade’s worth of stories, is what a vivid picture has emerged on these pages — a tapestry that shows what truly matters to human beings. Each story is a stitch in that tapestry; each piece enriches the overall picture. And I’m delighted to say that the overall picture looks set to continue to grow.

Corpus stories have been written by patients and caregivers; by health professionals (including GPs, nurses, surgeons, dentists, physiotherapists, counsellors, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists); by research scientists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, public health experts and literature scholars; by gardeners, musicians, poets, novelists, singers, artists and dancers. So many ways of thinking about how to sustain ourselves, or how to nourish others, when the chips are down. There is much diversity here, a wealth of insightful commentary from a range of perspectives. Yet one message comes through loud and clear across the board, and it’s that effective medicine involves taking care of every aspect of being human: body and mind, culture and belief, belonging and purpose, creativity and imagination, family, friends and community.

It is the bringing together of ideas and experiences that might otherwise stay within a silo of knowledge, unshared, that makes Corpus such an interesting and important forum. These stories reveal the realities behind any given (or not given) diagnosis, and shine a light on the uniqueness as well as the commonalities of human experience. They spin into life the walls of Sir Mason Durie’s Te Whare Tapa Whā model of health and wellbeing. This model describes health as a wharenui, or meeting house, whose four walls represent taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing), taha hinengaro (mental and emotional wellbeing), taha tinana (physical wellbeing) and taha whānau (family and social wellbeing). Crucial to the stability of these four walls is a stable foundation on the whenua, or land, on which the building stands. The Te Whare Tapa Whā model emphasises the importance of meeting and connection, and of the need to care equally for all component parts of the whare.

As we celebrate this milestone birthday, we thank every Corpus contributor, and every Corpus reader. You hail from all parts of Aotearoa New Zealand and the world. We’ve been buoyed by your engagement and by your enthusiasm for what Corpus does.

Our gratitude goes to Doug Lilly, who has been providing technical support (as well as a few articles) since we began in 2016.

From 2024, Corpus has been published by Otago University Press with the invaluable assistance of the Humanities Internship programme at the University of Otago. Publication has necessarily been intermittent for a few years, but we are about to pick up the pace again.  With our thanks for support from the University of Otago’s Research Centre for Medical Humanities, we are delighted to announce the appointment of Lisa Dick as the new editor for Corpus: Conversations about medicine and life. A warm welcome to you, Lisa.

When Corpus launched in 2016, we couldn’t have predicted that the next decade would bring such challenging times. In 2026, more than ever, we need spaces where humans can meet and connect, authentically and respectfully, to share ideas and experiences. We are pleased to invite anyone who would like to tell their story to get in touch on corpus@otago.ac.nz

And if you haven’t already done so, we’d love you to subscribe to receive notification of new pieces when they are published. Happy tenth birthday Corpus!

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Sue Wootton is a founding co-editor (with Barbara Brookes) of Corpus: Conversations about medicine and life. She is a former physiotherapist and a writer with a special interest in the capacity of language and story to facilitate recovery and healing. Sue is the publisher at Otago University Press.