I recently became a paediatric consultant and spend a large part of my day trying to look the part of a fully functioning leader. As juniors we get very little teaching on the topic and then get thrown off the treadmill of training, expected to be good quality leaders. As clinicians we are in the […]
Category: Uncategorized
Is working from home really working?
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a lasting effect on the working practices in many industries and organisations, and the NHS is no exception. Video outpatient appointments have become increasingly common for many hospital specialties and over one in three GP consultations are now conducted virtually, compared with one in seven before the pandemic [1,2]. But […]
Organisational Values: A much needed refresh by Abdul Zubairu
‘Should we provide some additional phlebotomy appointments for the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)?’ I asked my wife as we sat having our evening dinner. The background to this conversation was that our local CCG had asked the GP Federation, for which I am a Medical Director of, to provide some additional phlebotomy service to deal […]
Is it possible to ‘Have it all’? by Josie O’Heney
Since September 2021 I have been working as a National Medical Director’s clinical fellow. This fellowship has been enlightening about what happens on ‘the other side’, with a break from clinical work and instead spending my days on teams, zoom and emails. One of the aims of the scheme is to expose trainee doctors to […]
The road less travelled…by Aideen Dunne
One of my favourite poems is “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost and in summary it is a poem about the choices we are presented with in life. I have often used this poem as a compass when making big decisions, to challenge myself, am I doing something because it is a well-trodden route […]
Mentorship Mantras by Vineet Chopra, Ravi Pendse, & Sanjay Saint
It is hard to mentor in socially distant times. Stimulating growth and development in others, taking on new proteges, or helping mentees succeed is challenging in a virtual environment. It is tough to escape the lassitude of isolation and the incessant back-to-back Zoom meetings to find time for meaningful mentorship. It becomes a chore that […]
“Fresh Air” for the NHS by Emma Hadley
It is easy to assume those who work for the NHS, particularly frontline staff, would live a healthy lifestyle due to being well educated on lifestyle choices that positively and negatively impact on their health, or, that exposure to the outcomes of these choices could be enough of a deterrent to pursuing unhealthy habits. But […]
Trans allyship in healthcare – what ‘good’ looks like by William Ballard, Tom Gardiner and Rob Cullum
This LGBTQ+ history month, three LGBTQ+ healthcare professionals give you the lowdown on what it means to be a good trans ally in healthcare If there’s one thing you can guarantee about a career in healthcare, it’s that you will meet people of every ethnicity, every sexuality, every age and gender. However, healthcare professionals rarely […]
‘Leading from the front with a clear organizational vision and shared values’ by Farzana Rahman
As a team of radiologists who also lead a teleradiology start-up, we spend a lot of time thinking about what learnings we can take away from each role, especially when it comes to leadership. We often get asked, is there a difference between the leadership needed in the NHS and the leadership needed for running […]
“Bright spot thinking – learning from best practice to tackle inequalities in cardiovascular disease” by Tom Gardiner
The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a bright light on the seriousness of health inequalities within England, exacerbating the significant discrepancy between healthy life expectancy that is known to exist between the least and most deprived areas of England. A national approach to reduce health inequalities and narrow the life expectancy inequality gap, has been developed […]