UKFPO Bulletin
January Bulletin
Introduction
I want to start by wishing you all a happy New Year.
I also want to thank Professor Dame Carrie MacEwen, Chair of Council at the GMC for her contribution to last month’s bulletin.
It’s that time of year when many of us make resolutions in the hope we will be able to keep some of them. It’s also an opportunity to reflect on our practice – or maybe I’m prompted to do this because I’m currently gathering evidence for my appraisal next month.
Deciding to change what we do requires insight into what we do well and what we need to improve. Reflection on practice is an important part of professional development at all levels. This is why it is built into training and hopefully a skill we all refine as we become more experienced and find ourselves with fewer opportunities for obtaining feedback.
An ability to reflect and gain insight into our strengths and weaknesses can be developed through training with the help of regular feedback from trainers and other colleagues to guide practice. In Foundation, this feedback can be global in the form of PSG or focused on clinical work via SLEs, development as clinical teachers (DCT) or leadership/teamworking abilities (LEADER and TAB).
This is an important part of training – we all have gaps in our insight.
Hearing feedback can be difficult sometimes and can make us feel uncomfortable, but it is important to listen to it and reflect on it. Some of it might be wrong or misplaced but much of it is likely to be right and helps us see ourselves as others see us. It is difficult to admit our mistakes, but we need to do this to move on from them and stop ourselves repeating them.
Sadly, at consultant level, good feedback often comes much less frequently and is usually summative in the form of complaints and compliments from our patients, incident reports, morbidity and mortality reviews and audit. We also get feedback from our trainees and students via surveys including the annual GMC national training survey, which helps us to develop as educators.
Our formal MSF as non-training grades comes from colleague and patient feedback once every 5 years as part of the appraisal process.
I suppose, my challenge this month is for us all to read GMP2024 and think how our practice stands up to the expectations of others in our role as doctors and healthcare professionals.
Wishing you a fulfilling, safe and enjoyable 2024.
As always, there is more information on all this on the UKFPO website. You can also email any queries to foundation.educationandsupport@nhs.net
Best wishes
Tony Choules, Operational Advisor to the UKFP
Events and Webinars
Sustainability in Healthcare webinar – 12 January 2024, 14:00
Run by UKFPO for all UK foundation doctors.
Careers webinar – 6 February 2024, 14:00
Run by UKFPO for all foundation doctors.
If you are interested in any of our webinars but were unable to attend, you can find the webinar recordings on our website. We are looking forward to welcoming all our foundation doctors who have been accepted to present their work at the National Foundation Doctors Presentation Day 2024 in Bristol on Friday 19 January!
Reflection
Reflection is an essential part of training and development, see our webinar on PSG/TAB and summary narrative for tips.
Have you made any new year’s resolutions? We are pleased to have published a refreshed Tasters section. There is general guidance, as well as information for FDs, specialties providing tasters, FPTDs and FSDs.
E-learning for Health Update
For the latest update please click here