Craftivist zine-making with foundation doctors as medical humanities inquiry

This is a craftivist (ie, craft-activist) methodological inquiry which uses zine-making to explore the experiences of a small group of National Health Service (NHS) foundation doctors in the south-west of England. Foundation doctors undertake a 2-year training programme, comprising rotating medical and surgical internships and advanced training, before receiving their full medical licence from the General Medical Council. Drawing on arts-based research (ABR) methodologies, the ethics of action research and a feminist new materialist ethico-onto-epistemology, this project is a collaborative inquiry that is attentive both to the need for praxis-oriented research with foundation doctors during the current NHS crisis and the role of method in producing particular forms of knowledge. Foundation doctors are reported to have high levels of burn-out and poor mental well-being, are facing increasing job insecurity with the rise of competition ratios for training posts, and in the past 2 years have initiated 14 strikes for better working conditions and pay. This project is the first example of craftivist ABR with foundation doctors and seeks to demonstrate the value of creativity as a form of praxis to communicate experiences differently and make a change.