Leadership - an integral part of career in healthcare
The first regional event of FMLM in the midlands, organised in association with the University of Birmingham Medical leadership society, held at Birmingham medical school was a well-attended event with more than 50 medical students and trainee doctors.
Our first speaker was Dr. Jane Povey, Deputy Director of FMLM or primary care, who spoke to the audience about the faculty of medical leadership and management and the FMLM’s vision to inspire and promote excellence in medical leadership. She spoke about the strategic aims of FMLM and the support provided to members in developing skills in medical leadership and quality improvement.
Our next speaker was Professor Elizabeth Hughes, Medical postgraduate dean and Director of education and quality at Health Education West Midlands. She spoke on the importance of developing leadership skills through medical training and the medical leadership competency framework. She highlighted the important role of trainees in patient safety and quality improvement and the need to develop leadership skills during medical training.
The next session was an inspiring and passionate talk by Dr.Carmen Soto, who spoke about the problems junior doctors faced while trying to effect change. She spoke about the importance of speaking out when we feel that things are not right, and to continue trying to improve patient care.
Our next speaker was Dr. Faisal Shaikh , Deputy Quality improvement lead for Midlands and East who spoke about the journey of medical leadership in the NHS. He spoke about the Medical advisory committees and their potential in advancing a culture of medical leadership with its wider clinical and organisational benefits. He spoke about the need to integrate medical leadership in medical school and postgraduate training.
We then had a workshop on “What makes a good clinical leader” where delegates were encouraged to think about the generic characteristics of a good leader and mention their experiences about medical leadership .The delegates were encouraged to discuss Lewin’s theory of leadership styles and then had an opportunity to critique a scenario of a post-take surgical ward round and think about how things could be improved.
Our first speaker in the afternoon session was Professor Matthew Cooke, Associate Medical Director (Transformation & Emergency Care) at HEFT, Professor of Clinical Systems Design at Warwick Medical School and HSJ 100 most influential clinical leaders 2013. He spoke regarding leading and managing organizational change. It was an inspirational session hearing his journey becoming a medical leader and his experience of leading national change and introducing national quality indicators. It was interesting to learn about the importance of social mobilization and stakeholder engagement in effecting large scale changes and the concept of ‘nudge theory’. He stressed the importance of being honest, open and sticking to your beliefs as a medical leader.
The next speaker was Captain Simon Tallowin , trainee representative of FMLM for armed forces. He spoke about the similarities and differences between leadership in the NHS and military. He introduced the concept of mission command and encouraged the delegates to reflect on whether this concept shall work in NHS.
Our next speaker was Dr.Jane Povey, Deputy Director of FMLM or primary care, who spoke to the audience about leadership in primary care and the role of FMLM in inspiring, supporting and equipping current and potential GP leaders. It was interesting to learn about commissioning and the importance of medical leadership in commissioning.
The next session was a workshop on organizational leadership where delegates were encouraged to think of a system that has worked well or badly as a whole and to discuss about things that are needed for services to work well. The NHS Clinical Leadership and Competency Framework was discussed with specific attention to quality improvement part .The delegates were then given an opportunity to critique an acute medical take model in the case study, to identify problems and suggest improvements.
Feedback from the delegates has been excellent. I hope to continue organizing such events in the future and thank Dr.Kaanthan Jawahar and Jacob Mathews for their help and support in organizing this event.
Molla Imaduddin Ahmed, Specialist Registrar in Paediatrics,Paediatric Intensive care unit and Paediatric Cardiology,
Glenfield Hospital, University Hospitals of Leicester