Balancing leadership and clinical responsibilities is a perpetual challenge for doctors. As academic foundation doctors we ‘psych ourselves up’ for leadership during the application and interview process. By the end of final year we start explaining why we were so excited about going to Leicester. Suddenly FY1 starts, it’s all night shifts and weekends, […]
Medical Leadership in the Foundations
The Doctor as a ‘Street-Level Bureaucrat’
Why don’t policies play out as planned? It’s a key question in public policy. For the police this might mean Why does stop-and-search affect a disproportionate number of black people? For educators it might mean Why are children kept out of the classroom without being excluded? And in the hospital, perhaps, Why are […]
Why we all need to learn leadership
by Dr Shivali Fulchand @shivalifulchand Last week, in the first issue of ‘The Doctor’, a magazine for doctors started by the BMA, Keith Cooper discussed bullying among NHS doctors. The article highlighted that doctors at all levels of training, even at consultant level, can face harassment and bullying. This has long been accepted […]
Positive Organizational Culture: eLearning vs QI
Summer’s over and we’re approaching the end of induction season. Hopefully most of you are settled into the new year. Induction at Northampton General Hospital had three key messages a) The QI department is world-beating so get involved, b) Here’s a long list of eLearning modules, and c) Try not to worry about the […]
Access to Primary Care in a ‘Hostile Environment’
It’s always frustrating to start in a new place without having all the paperwork or ‘life admin’ sorted. I moved to Northampton six weeks ago to start a GP placement and I’m just beginning to settle in. Incidentally, along with my colleague Rose Glennerster, I’ve been investigating the barriers faced by people who want […]
Should organisations such as CCGs collaborate with medical schools to establish strong paid and unpaid research networks?
My journey to becoming a doctor was what you might call “the scenic route”. Medical school was my second degree and, while this has many advantages, it also came with some draw backs, mainly financial. Here’s my experience of when you want to do research but need to pay for your degree. There are […]
3 Lessons Learned From Failed QI Projects
Dr Hannah Laidley, AFY2, University of Leicester Quality improvement work can feel inescapable. That’s because it is; we have to do it to progress through the foundation programme. So we might as well make it work for us and get a poster presentation out of it. ‘Easy!’ I thought. Each PDSA cycle […]
Bawa-Garba and The Williams Review: NHS Leadership at the Highest Level
This week many doctors were relieved that Hadiza Bawa-Garba ‘s appeal against her erasure from the medical register was successful. Back in February, junior doctor anger was reaching fever pitch as the GMC had successfully appealed her suspension and had her permanently erased from the medical register. Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for […]
Leading Through Excellence: Lessons from Teach First
As an American twenty-something making a killing working in London, Brett Wigdortz might not be who we would expect to radically reinvigorate state education in England. On a pro bono project with management consultants McKinsey he found himself visiting a failing school in the capital which he described as “a prison of low expectations”. […]
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