In this short video, Ella, who is a member of our Resident Doctor Panel, shares how she has been preparing to apply for a post on a higher training programme.
The course which Ella refers to in her video is our Teach the Teacher Course for Doctors.
Our Resident Doctor Panel is a small group of doctors working in different roles who share their experiences with us. In return, we support them with their development. Click here to find out more about the Oxford Medical Resident Doctor Panel.
On 18th October 2024, Oxford Medical became part of the Reducate EdTech Group.
Reducate was founded with one common goal: that the world is a better place with skilled professionals. We share the same vision. Reducate has positioned itself as a frontrunner in the European EdTech market, offering a diverse range of brands and solutions across multiple sectors. By joining the EdTech Group, we have the opportunity to enhance our services, for example by leveraging advanced technology and in-house studios. This ensures that we will be able to continue providing the highest quality professional skills CPD courses for doctors in the market. Read more about Reducate on their corporate website.
Words used to describe doctors and the NHS have come into sharp focus recently. At long last, the powers that be have agreed to replace the misleading title “junior doctor” with resident”. One step forward. Simultaneously, the new UK Government are coming under fire for persistently describing the NHS as being “broken”. They have referred to some aspects of the service as being a “shame on the nation.” They have said that cancer diagnosis is “more likely to be a death sentence for NHS patients than those in other countries.” When healthcare leaders, media commentators and political opponents have challenged this language, the Government have doubled down and refused to apologise.
As children, the adults around us may have told us that, “Sticks and stones will break your bones but names can never hurt you.” However, how many of us actually believe that? Words matter. They can have a major impact on the way we think, feel and act.
“Don’t think about a big red balloon that’s ready to burst!”
During our patient communication skills courses, we regularly introduce phrases like this, then pause for a moment as a springboard for discussion. No pictorial images of the big red balloon are required. Words are powerful in changing what we are paying attention to.
All too often, negative language will encourage a negative response. As a result, participants struggle to effectively interact, pushing each other in opposing directions. If we believe that we are participating in something that is broken, that we are somehow involved in bringing shame, then some of us may become antagonistic. Many are likely to become despondent, demoralised and detached. We’ve discussed before in our blog-posts that we risk the self-fulfilling prophecy of doctors who expect burnout to be part of their lives, rather than developing true resilience.
Our previous experience also shapes what we understand. In the past, there were common tales of patient interactions with major misunderstandings of doctor’s titles: “I insist on seeing the Senior House Officer and not just some Consultant….” “Junior doctor” was always an inappropriate, misleading title, and healthcare systems in other countries already use “resident” instead. But how many UK patients will think the resident actually lives in the hospital? It may well take a bit of explanation and some time to embed the change.
Change can be hard. It’s often easy in the early stages but difficult to sustain. It took many people and organisations a long time to move on from using Senior House Officer. In fact, some never moved on at all, and you may still hear that term hanging around. Change is a topic which is common to a lot of our courses. It’s relevant for teamwork, leadership, management, mentoring, teaching and patient communication.
If we want to get past the negativity, and to get helpful new language embedded, then we have to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. Everyone has a part to play. So, what can we do as individuals?
It has to start with our own communication and our belief in the impact of our own words. We have to find ways to reframe what we are saying to help both ourselves and others focus on the right things. We need to find the equivalent of moving on from, “Don’t think about a big red balloon that’s ready to burst” to, “Think about sitting beside calm water on a sunny day.” It helps if we can set ourselves reminders, to maintain awareness, and catch ourselves when we drop into the old outdated or unhelpful language.
If we lead by example, then it’s easier to support and challenge other members of our team – those who look up to us, our peers and our own leaders. This may require learning effective methods and developing abilities of providing constructive feedback and critique.
Change won’t happen by itself. What steps are you taking that will make a difference?
Stephen McGuire – Managing Director
Please note: offers have now ended
We’re delighted to be celebrating Oxford Medical’s 20th anniversary this weekend!
We were established on 10th August 2004, and now provide professional skills training to thousands of doctors each year, both in the UK and across the globe.
To mark the occasion, we’ve got some short-term special offers for you, meaning you can make big savings as you give your professional skills a major boost.
Offers go live on Friday 9th August and end 23:59 BST on Sunday 11th August 2024. Make sure you don’t miss out!
Develop your abilities – Maximise your potential.
*Sale prices cannot be combined with any other offer or coupon code.
We’re delighted to announce that Oxford Medical have been awarded the Customer Service Excellence hallmark from the UK Government Cabinet Office.
You may, or may not, be familiar with Customer Service Excellence Standard accreditation. When it first came to our attention, we were initially attracted by the authenticity and credibility provided by genuine independent assessment. Then, on further investigation, we realised that the framework and assessment process could also provide us with a structured approach to consider our ways of working. Taking an honest look at ourselves, combined with input from our assessor has acted as a catalyst for new ideas, informing our strategy and actions for improvement. So, it’s more than just a badge.
We chose an approach that was pretty much in line with the classic clinical audit cycle which can be applied to any quality improvement initiative.
It’s tempting to stop there. But the difference between a process and a cycle is that the latter is ongoing. So, once you’ve initiated change, you need to make sure it’s embedded and actually making things better. Taking steps to improve one thing can often have unexpected impacts. There can be surprising knock on benefits, which are always good to recognise. However, “improvement” in one place can easily create a new problem elsewhere. So, it often makes sense to pay attention to a suite of standards, monitoring performance in a variety of ways, capitalising on benefits and addressing new shortfalls.
Even when we follow good audit practices, human nature, familiarity or even lack of awareness of possibilities can mean we often have blind spots to what is really going on around us. This is where external assessment can have a major impact. Being open to the scrutiny of a suitably experienced independent auditor and listening to their feedback can be very revealing. Care Quality Commission inspections, appraisal and ARCP meetings all fall into this category.
There’s no doubt that the auditor’s attitude can have a major impact. In a ideal world, they should provide supportive, constructive critique, rather than taking the “Gotcha!” approach. But the attitude of the team is another factor in determining if there are true benefits from an external assessment. Being overly defensive, or resistant to either hearing facts or comparison to others are major obstacles to accepting reality – an essential step in achieving improvement.
Thankfully, working with Assessment Services was a very positive experience. By engaging with our assessor and listening carefully to his observations, we’ve identified a number of initiatives for making progress. In addition, we’ve also heightened our awareness of our abilities and the things we do well. This is a vital part of any audit process, as the solutions to our challenges often lie within our strengths.
So, now we have to get on with putting our ideas into action, pay attention to the results and make sure we get ourselves ready for another successful assessment process next year.
Stephen McGuire – Managing Director
As Junior Doctor Panel member, Mel, comes toward the end of her Clinical Education Fellow FY3 role, she reflects on her experiences and shares how she is preparing for her new post as a GP Academic Clinical Fellow.
Our Junior Doctor Panel is a small group of medical students and junior doctors working in different roles who share their experiences with us. In return, we support them with their development. Click here to find out more about the Junior Doctor Panel.
The course which Mel refers to in her video is our Essentials of Medical Leadership & Management Course.
We’ve received a number of queries about the impact of junior doctor strike action on our services. We can confirm that our courses are unaffected by the industrial action and that all tutor-led courses will run as normal. In addition, our instant access online courses are designed to put you in full control, meaning you can progress your development as and when you like.
As he approaches the end of his FY1 year, Andrew, from our Junior Doctor Panel, shares his experiences of rotation changes along with the steps he has taken to help overcome the challenges.
Our Junior Doctor Panel is a small group of medical students and junior doctors working in different roles who share their experiences with us. In return, we support them with their development. Click here to find out more about the Junior Doctor Panel.
The course Andrew refers to in this interview is our Advanced Team Communication Skills Course for Doctors.
Here’s a short video interview with Bhavik, GPST and member of our Junior Doctor Panel where he shares recent experiences, including his involvement in medical leadership at the practice he’s working at.
Our Junior Doctor Panel is a small group of medical students and junior doctors working in different roles who share their experiences with us. In return, we support them with their development. Click here to find out more about the Junior Doctor Panel.
The course which Bhavik refers to in his video is our Essentials of Medical Leadership & Management course.
We are constantly bombarded by images of the rich and famous exuding style. As I’m writing this, your social media feeds and news websites are awash with the photographs of the great and the good attending the annual Met Gala fundraising fashion event in Manhattan. Many commentators will hail this as the epitome of style. “Fabulous!” “Extraordinary!” “Daring!” But there are also detractors. “Ridiculous!” “Decadent!” “The Emperor’s new clothes!”
Why does style matter? Why does it provoke such reactions? And, more to the point, what’s this got to do with medical leadership?
We’ll come back to these questions shortly, after a short diversion into the world of politics.
A few days before the magical/preposterous Met Gala, (delete as appropriate), our weekend news was filled with politicians conducting the post-mortem/celebrating the latest round of election results, (delete as appropriate). One thing that they generally had in common was a desire to demonstrate that they had the upper hand. They want to show that they, rather than their opponents were the answer to the current challenges. A highlight/low-point, (delete as appropriate) came when one high profile interviewee dismissed a candidate for high office as being unsuitable for the role because they have “the charisma of a peanut!”
Why does charisma matter? How do you get it? What is it anyway? And – again – what’s this got to do with medical leadership?
On our various medical leadership courses, we often hear comments like “I want to develop my leadership style,” and, “I wish I had charisma.”
When it comes to taking the lead and getting something done, we have choices in how we go about it. This idea of behavioural choice is well established in our language. “Different strokes for different folks.” “Each to their own.” “There are many ways to skin a cat!” But our choices are not always evident to us.
We inevitably learn from the leaders that we have worked with in the past. When it comes to leadership style, they are, in many ways, like the uber-celebrities on the Met Gala red carpet. We recall some unbelievable catastrophes and are pretty certain what behavioural choices we want to avoid. At the same time, we look back fondly on other leaders with admiration and aspire to copy their style. So, quite rightly, we intelligently try to approach leading people in the same way that they did.
However, our awareness is limited by our experience. Going back to common phrases, “All roads lead to Rome,” suggests you’ll get where you want to no matter what choice you make. Is that actually true? The fashionista’s don’t always dress the way that they do on the red carpet. They choose their style to suit the occassion. Sometimes that’s expensive couture. At other times, it’s a t-shirt and jeans. Good leadership requires adapting and using different styles in different situations.
“If all you’ve ever had is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail,” is a useful reminder that there may be ways to get things done that are beyond our experience or awareness. We’re not always aware of the range of “tools” or leadership styles that are available to us.
In clothing, we know that some people wear styles that we can’t imagine ourselves in. At other times we see new things we’d like to try – and we don’t always know what suits us best! So, it helps to step out of the bubble of our personal mindset from time to time and explore the possibilities.
Potentially, yes!
“Style” has many definitions – many of them related to appearance. If your leadership style choices are all about how things look, then – yes – that’s too shallow. And that’s a mistake many people make, particularly when seeking the intangible magic ingredient called “charisma.”
Leadership is about making things happen. When the focus is all about style, how things look and personality it’s unlikely to result in any sustainable change.
If we consider charisma as the “ability to gain and maintain people’s attention,” then that part becomes easier to grasp. We gain and maintain attention when we engage people in an idea that matters to them in a way that matters to them. Having a focus on what matters and what needs to change provides leadership substance. The choice is then: which leadership style to adopt to match the specific situation?
Leadership style and substance is a powerful combination.
What steps are you taking to ensure you keep your leadership fresh?
Stephen McGuire – Managing Director
