02 FYi


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Welcome News


CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT


REFLECTIVE PRACTICE NEW guidance and resources have been published in a bid to encourage doctors and other clinicians to take part in reflective practice. A joint statement signed by the General Medical Council (GMC) and


eight other UK healthcare regulators emphasised the importance of reflective practice in improving services and patient care. Being a reflective practitioner, it said, benefits people using health


Welcome to your FYi


NO ONE likes to give or receive criticism. But while it is tempting to keep quiet, failing to speak out can threaten patient safety. On page 10, senior risk adviser Liz Price offers practical advice, including on the tricky issue of giving feedback to a senior colleague. If you’ve ever felt out of your


depth at work or that everyone else knows more than you, then you may be affected by “imposter syndrome”. This mindset is remarkably common and has affected greats including Albert Einstein and Meryl Streep. Dr Allan Gaw takes a closer look at this phenomenon on page 4. Stress can be an unavoidabe


part of medical training, but there are ways to make it work for you. Dr Aman Arora talks meditation and goal-setting on page 5. Helping new medical graduates in Scotland on their way is a book of specially- selected poems. Sponsored by


COVER PHOTOGRAPH: HEATHCLIFF O’MALLEY


MDDUS, Tools of the Trade speaks to the experience of being a junior doctor (page 6). It can be tricky remaining


detached from patients on a personal basis, particularly for doctors who have longstanding clinical relationships with individuals and families. Read advice on staying professional in Liz Price’s article on page 7. A career in medicine is demanding enough, but Dr Layla Guscoth has also blazed a trail as a star player in the England Netball squad. She talks about her twin passions on page 12. In our career article on page


8, Dr Elizabeth Reilly offers an insight into the rapidly evolving field of rheumatology. Meanwhile, our case study on page 14 looks at the treatment of a patient presenting with a paraumbilical hernia.


• Dr Naeem Nazem Editor


and care services by: • Supporting individual professionals in multi-disciplinary work


• Fostering improvements in practice and services


• Assuring the public that health and care professionals are continuously learning and seeking to improve. It endorsed the value of reflecting in groups, teams and multi-


professional settings “to develop ideas that can bring about positive change” in practice. Employers are urged to encourage teams to make time for reflection as a way of “aiding development, improving wellbeing and deepening professional commitment”. The statement also reassured clinicians that personal written


reflections will not be used to investigate concerns about them. Registrants will be given the choice of offering them as evidence of insight into their practice. Patient confidentiality, it said, is vital. “Where reflections are recorded, they should be anonymised and focus on learning gain and development rather than the identifiable details of people, the experience, activity or event.”


The GMC has added new


resources, case studies and learning materials to its online resource The reflective practitioner (tinyurl.com/y6lshe8r)


EDITOR:


Dr Naeem Nazem MBChB BSc (Hons) MRCP LLB (Hons)


MANAGING EDITOR: Joanne Curran


ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Jim Killgore


DESIGN: Connect Communications www.connectmedia.cc


CORRESPONDENCE: FYi Editor MDDUS Mackintosh House 120 Blythswood Street Glasgow G2 4EA


t: 0333 043 4444 e: jcurran@mddus.com w: www.mddus.com


NEW APPROACH NEEDED TO


IMPROVE TRANS PATIENT CARE NHS care for trans patients must involve a whole-system approach to improve services, including education and training for healthcare professionals, improved IT systems and access to gender identity services, according to a new position paper by the Royal College of GPs. The paper on the role of the GP in caring for gender-questioning and


FYi is published by The Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland, Registered in Scotland No 5093 at Mackintosh House, 120 Blythswood Street, Glasgow G2 4EA. The MDDUS is not an insurance company. All the benefits of membership of MDDUS are discretionary as set out in the Articles of Association. The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various authors in FYi are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland.


transgender patients recommends that the GP curriculum covers gender dysphoria and broader trans health issues – and that more training programmes should be developed to support GPs and their teams to appropriately engage with and advise trans patients. It also calls for updated IT systems to enable GPs to treat trans


patients in a safe and respectful manner, and that record codes are established for gender identity and trans status as well as biological sex.


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