Hello, and welcome to my PLATFORM!
Thank you for taking the time to visit and explore all I have to share. I regularly publish my own articles, images and links to other media with further content centred around my ethos. Let me fill you in on my content and break down the structure and format of this website.
Below is a map of my platform, breaking down it’s key components. My website mirrors this map, acting as the main vehicle for me to reach people and share. Read on and I will explain what each component means and represents to me.
Appreciation
This website first began as a blog, a virtual space where I could appreciate myself. A medium where I could wander and imagine, escape and get lost in my own energy. I specified it’s purpose as ‘me sharing what life, but more specifically, the people and places I encounter, mean to me’.
I just wanted to feel free, to not have to inhibit + constrain myself. To no longer feel numb + desolate, like I was decaying in the dirt, in limbo like landfill. When I feel truly alive, I speak from the heart openly + freely, don’t conform to convention or knuckle under the norm. But have often struggled for people + places that enable me to do this in full flow, that accept + embrace me for who I really am.
Yet writing has always been an omnipotent outlet to express every colour and note of my existence. I don’t need anyone else, only my mind + heart, my fingers, a tool and a palette. This won’t ever stop, only evolve, as long as I draw breath.
Writing here sporadically for many years has been a vital part of my journey in becoming less reliant on external validation + approval so who I am within can evolve + blossom. I like to discuss, analyse, evaluate, and synthesise moments, events, practices, experiences, emotions, and more.
Elements
My articles thus have themes, or what I like to refer to as ‘elements’. Call them key notions, concepts, cornerstones, feelings, practices, principles, values, whatever. In essence they capture what I most appreciate about myself, people and places:
- #TRAVEL – the element of discovery
- #GUSH – the element of gratitude
- #FREESCENES – the element of place
- #REFLECTIONS – the spiritual element
- #BEAUTIFULPEOPLE – the human element
- #VOCATION – the element of visions
To learn more about each element simply click on the title, which will take you to a page with more information and a list of articles featuring this theme. Each element is also listed in the header menu of this website.
Contribution
At the time of writing I am taking my platform a step further by adding a new dimension in adopting drBACKPACK as my own, comprehensive, professional identity. I have been doing this for a while, but not on the scale I now intend. Working in institutional settings has taught me a great deal yet been damaging, unfulfilling, wasteful, draining, constraining, life-limiting and soul-sapping.
It is time for me to find and foster a workplace environment and culture conducive to my values, qualities, and capacities. Only then can I thrive and feel fully fledged. As detailed in my ethos, change begins with myself, and drBACKPACK is now also my foundation to build, grow and evolve. It’s time to embrace all that I am instead of trying to adapt and fit in within failing systems + settings. It’s time to take control and be my own boss.
Streams
In short, I don’t want to keep talking about, exploring, and envisaging ideas, I want to also start giving and making things happen! I’ve been critical of the way things are done around me for a while, it’s ingrained within me, and now it’s time to also get creative by providing, sharing, delivering. My outreach can currently be broken down into five STREAMS:
- Clinical Room – caring: the Healthcare Professional
- Academia – learning: the Writer/Researcher/Academic
- Outdoors – playing: the Adventurer
- Sensorium – expressing: the Artist
- Empowerment – sharing: the Trainer/Educator
To learn more about each stream, have a read! You can do this by clicking on a title of interest, or above in the header menu of this website. You can also find me on the following social media to see what else I’m sharing and to keep in touch:
- ResearchGate
- YouTube (coming soon)
Simply click on the medium you desire and it will take you to my profile.
How to Navigate my Platform
This website will features spontaneously publishing articles related to the elements and domains I have listed here. The following are the latest articles I have published, and are also present on the homepage as you scroll down:
- Calais
- Filters (for life)
- Spring Clean, Summer Cleanse
- Check-in: Calais to Eryri
- London Ambulance Service, Clinical Hub (LAS CHUB): C2 Validation Pilot
Furthermore, the overview page of each element and domain will also contain a list of relevant articles I have published so far, and some will also list articles I intend to publish.
Format of articles
To clarify how my articles are formatted I would like to explain how the following are used in-text:
Underline – words are important in the wider context of the article.
Italics – word(s) aren’t necessarily important but italics are used to give emphasis. Also used for all captions.
Bold – either a sub-heading, or the word(s) contain links to other pages in this blog or external sites (when clicked on the page will open in a new tab).
Published March 2022
drBACKPACK 
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