Creating leadership resilience in emergency care
Dr Andrew Holdstock BSc (Hons) BMBS (Hons) MRCEM Locum Clinical Fellow in Simulation and Emergency Medicine
As a new registrar in emergency medicine, the timing of the first joint conference between the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management (FMLM) and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) was perfect.
At the current stage in my career I am starting to take more of a leadership role – managing a busy emergency department over night, leading a team in the resuscitation room and taking a front seat in departmental projects. Broaching this new role and trying to find your feet can be tricky; many people give advice on how to be a leader but finding your own style while developing resilience can be difficult.
By attending this conference I learnt how some of the top leaders in our profession approach this issue, within both an emergency care setting and an organisation at local and national level. Hearing Clifford Mann, RCEM President, talk eloquently about the difficulties within our profession and the system, and discussing how individuals can have a role in change, and Alistair Douglas, President of the Society for Acute Medicine, share challenges and solutions to create resilience, was both interesting and inspiring.
Duncan Ross, from the Centre for Innovation and Health Management at Leeds University, talked about managing difficult conversations and the art of negotiation, and Amanda Bertram from Chimp Management Ltd, discussed how we think, which made me reflect on my own performance and practice in the process of becoming a better leader.
It is good to hear how other people have undertaken the same journey that I am now embarking on, particularly how they managed difficulties and successes. Speakers including Marc Sabbe, President of EuSEM, and Katrin Hruska, President of the Swedish Society of Emergency Medicine, gave an informed international perspective – it helps to realise that there are common problems and solutions internationally and that we can learn from other systems to improve our own.
Listening to what makes a good leader, how to be resilient, optimise individual and team performance and looking at perspectives from outside of the UK, I came away from the event more confident, reassured and inspired to take more of a role on both an individual and system level. I realised that as a clinician I can develop my career path to incorporate a leadership element and enact change. I also took away some top tips that will change my day to day working. I’m very glad I attended.