Severn Postgraduate School of Paediatrics – January 2018 Newsletter The Progress Edition
Happy new year!
Ok, it’s over a month late, but the sentiment is genuine. While the initial excitement of New Year resolutions may be fading, I hope you’re all making progress towards your personal goals for 2018. One of my aims is to further develop our sense of collegiality as a school. Continuously improving the experience and outcomes of paediatric training in Severn will benefit us all; together we can make the difference.
- Changes call for innovation, and innovation leads to progress Li Keqiang
The deanery support team for paediatrics has reduced in size and is coming to terms with a broader range of responsibilities. We are lucky to have kept Susan as education and programme manager but sadly Karen has moved across to a different department. I certainly miss her regular weekly bulletin keeping us up to speed with what’s going on (and not just the cartoons). While I can’t promise the frequency or entertainment value that Karen achieved, I will try to get back to regular email updates. I hope we can find other ways to connect too – any suggestions are more than welcome. The Peninsula trainees have set up a Trello page (trello.com) – a bit like an online gated social community, with access by invitation. Is that something we’d like to replicate or join in Severn? Please send your thoughts and ideas to me or your trainee reps for the next board meeting.
- Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity Thor Heyerdahl
The big event of this year will be the launch of ‘RCPCH Progress’ – the new curriculum for paediatric postgraduate training. It is one of the first to be approved by the GMC to meet its new standards. Contrary to what Thor might say, Progress promises to be a positive change – focusing more on global learning outcomes and generic capabilities than long lists of competences to tick off. To find out more, visit the webpage atwww.rcpch.ac.uk/progress The college is planning events this year to help trainees, supervisors and tutors prepare for the transition. Unless your CCT date is before the 15th September 2019, you will move to the new curriculum in August this year, so do make some time to find out about it.
- Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below. Noam Chomsky
- Message from David Hanna:
We have just finalised the line-up for 2018 Traumacare conference in Staffordshire. The paediatric trauma day is on 17th April and we have brought together a panel of experienced paediatricians and emergency physicians alongside experts in paediatric trauma and primary retrieval. These include senior members of the team from Manchester Children's Hospital who managed multiple paediatric casualties in the aftermath of the Ariana Grande concert bombing in May 2017.
We have designed the programme for physicians, nurses and allied health professionals who work in acute paediatrics and emergency services. It would also be ideal for paediatric trainees, particularly those with an interest in paediatric emergency medicine or who plan to apply to do grid PEM/PICU training.
https://www.traumacare.org.uk/event-2767838
Developing Effective Clinician Leaders https://www.keele.ac.uk/cml/
- You will have heard or read about the recent High Court decision about Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba. I guess we all feel a great deal of empathy with her and recognise the pressures she was working under. Many of you will be thinking about whether or how this should change your practice now. What should you do if overstretched at work due to acute sickness or staff shortage? DMEs and medical directors are likely to give trust specific guidance soon. For now, do you know where to access your department’s escalation policy? Who would you contact if you needed to raise immediate concerns? Check with your educational supervisor if not sure.
The second thing to consider is how to record reflection. There was some misreporting about how reflective accounts were used in Dr Bawa-Garba’s case, which has recently been clarified. Misrepresentation aside, I completely understand the fear that reflection might be used ‘against’ us. Most of us reflect in some way or another as a part of experiential learning, and we are professionally obliged to reflect on our performance and values. For some this comes naturally as an explicit written process, for others it will be an internal conversation that can be much harder or even artificial to write down. The point of reflection in the portfolio is to identify the learning, rather than produce a detailed descriptive account of the event leading to the learning. My advice for now would be to focus on the outcomes of reflection for your portfolio, rather than the details of the event. Anonymise the situation as far as possible, particularly references to specific identifiable patients, family members and other healthcare professionals. You may have to produce separate, more factual summaries for any incident review process. Remember to talk to your educational supervisor, clinical tutor or others for support and advice. The wider school team is here for you too. We shouldn’t let this stop us using reflection as a way of converting experience into useful personal development – but pause to think about how we document that reflection. There may be further guidance soon from the college.
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. Henry Ford
Thanks for making it this far, and that’s all for now.
Here is a link for all the school contacts. If you’d like to get more involved in the work and development of the school, please get in touch!
Very best wishes, Russell
@russell_peek
Russell.Peek@nhs.net
