The beginning of August marked me being in post for 9 months, as well as heralding a new intake of junior doctors, and saying good bye to those moving on. Those of you following my #KW5years tweets might remember that I was assigned my first ever trainee in January, and I was pretty keen to get being a trainer “right”.
'I will never ask you to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself.' - Louis Bloom
How can we fight back against the tick boxing? Here are six, simple ways that I think we, as trainers in particular, can make a significant difference to the quality of assessments.
In these days of evidence based medicine, the story is often looked down upon as archaic, just an anecdote, having no place in modern medicine. Is this true? Have stories nothing to teach us anymore?
Last week, Manchester Women’s Institute held a panel discussion on “Women in the NHS” to celebrate the upcoming International Women’s Day on March 8th. The W.I. had some set questions prepared for us all and there were also some extra questions from the audience on the night.
I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking about this a lot, and as I have reflected I have come up with a list of 5 things that I believe will stand me in good stead in the weeks and years to come.
We must come to terms with the fact that rudeness is a serious problem and throw out any idea that it is somehow worth putting up with to get the job done. The reality is, not only does it not get the job done, it actually makes the job harder.
We must aspire to be more than covers bands, playing the same popular tunes that everyone has heard before and loves to sing along with. We must write our own songs, new songs, play them loudly and risk being ridiculed because, just like Rock & Roll, trying to make medicine better is a risk.
Trust underpins who we are as doctors. Trust is everything.
When we stop and think about who has influenced us at work, there is often something about the way they actually lived their lives that made that impact. It wasn’t just what they believed, what they said, that struck us, it was how they acted, how they lived that made us stop and take note. If we are honest we want to be like them too, someone that people look up to, someone who sets an example for others and makes people want to be better. Is this something that just happens or can we actively choose to be like that?
Broken Toy 