“How can you work from home as a doctor?”

This is a question I’ve been getting a lot since I started my new job, so I thought it was time I explained exactly what I do on my non-clinical days.

I’m working as a Clinical Teaching Fellow this year, which means that I have one clinical day on the wards (AMU), two days a week teaching medical students, and the rest of my week is spent working for the Improvement Team of the hospital, which means I get to work from home.

So far I’m really enjoying the #WFH life, as it’s been a welcome break after my hectic FY2 rotations. I’ve mentioned previously that my work for the Improvement Team involves creating teaching resources and working on projects focusing on equality, diversity and inclusion, but what does this actually mean on a day to day basis, you ask? Well, allow me to elaborate!

At the moment, I’m working on a quality improvement project aiming to increase awareness of FY1 doctors in the Trust of where and how to report racist incidents and microaggressions they experience at work – I definitely got (and still get) a lot of these, but I found speaking up about them really overwhelming as an FY1. Being new to working as a doctor, and also being new to the Trust was quite intimidating, and it was made tougher by not knowing where or who to turn to for help, so this is something I want to improve for current FY1s, to be hopefully rolled out to other groups of staff. My Trust is now doing more to support staff when it comes to these issues, so one of my goals this year is to make the whole reporting/escalating process a lot easier and more straightforward.

Part of my work for the Improvement Team involves being a representative for foundation year/junior doctors in various board meetings; trust me, A LOT of meetings happen at executive level in the running of NHS Trusts. It’s been quite eye-opening to be part of these meetings, as they influence the day-to-day lives of staff in the hospital, but there is usually minimal representation of junior doctors. So my job is to bridge the gap between management and junior doctors, and I’ve been giving input on the practical aspects of proposed changes from things like discharge planning and discharge letters, to induction packages and team restructures, so that’s been very cool.

As for the creating resources part of my role, I am currently in the process of conducting interviews with staff across the Trust who comes from under-represented backgrounds. The exhibition we put together last month is part of an ongoing project to improve the experiences of staff who are minorities in the Trust. So these interviews will be used for training of line managers and supervisors, to help them better understand how they can offer more support to their colleagues and employees.

All of this work is linked closely to my role within the medical school, as I’m helping to develop bystander training and communication skills, so the eventual goal is to have the work we do with the students transferred across to train staff at the hospital, which is all very exciting.

So yeah, just a bit of insight into what I do when I’m working from home – I feel so blessed to have been given a year out of training to do a role I feel so passionate about, and I’ll definitely be updating on what we get done as the year progresses 😀

I’ve Been Feeling Stressed

And I think one thing I’m really bad at is admitting when I’m feeling overwhelmed, which then makes the stress worse, and I become snappy and not nice to be around. Not good. So I’m writing it here to be more open about how I’m feeling in the moment: I’ve been feeling low lately.

With new work pressures/expectations, as well as general life stuff, things have been feeling a bit much for me over the last couple of weeks, and I’ve been struggling. But I’m starting to feel better now, so here are some things that have helped:

1. Talking about it with people I can be open and 100% myself with.
2. Taking breaks from my phone – turns out being available all the time and constantly reading the news isn’t great for peace of mind.
3. Reading for fun again.
4. Watching TV to switch off for a bit – I recently started Downton Abbey, as well as binged Clickbait and the new season of Sex Education in the last week, just to give you an idea of how much ‘switching off’ I’ve needed.
5. Praying about it and reading my Bible more. I’ve been getting a lot of encouragement from John 14:27-29, and remembering the gift of peace that comes from Christ.

In other news, my first official project with the Improvement Team was launched last week, and it’s an exhibition celebrating diversity in the NHS. It includes portraits, paintings and sound clips of various staff members from various groups within the Trust, sharing their experiences of working in the area, information about their backgrounds, as well as how the pandemic has affected them.

The exhibition was put together in collaboration with the local art college, and will be on display for free to the public for the next month. I’ve been so honoured to be part of this project (organising it all has been super stressful but we got there in the end!), and I also got the chance to be photographed as well, which was so much fun:

Here’s to future projects with the team, and yay for celebrating diversity!

The Thing About My Sister

When people ask me about my twin, I tell them that she’s like me, but better. The automatic assumption from most people when they hear this is that I’m being self-deprecating, and they’re quick to tell me not to put myself down and to give myself more credit. But they seriously misunderstand me.

You see, me telling people that I believe that my sister is a better version of myself is not me fishing for compliments. Trust me, I back myself quite strongly and have a healthy amount of self confidence now (we thank God). Long story short: I’m great, but Kenny is even better.

Being a twin has many pros, and one way I describe it is that you get to see an alternate universe version of yourself in real life. My sister and I are similar in many ways, but we also differ in others, especially in recent years with our career paths. So getting to witness and be a part of the direction that Ken’s life is heading in is really truly an honour.

So in what ways is Kenny better than me? She’s a lot more patient for one- I tend to be quicker to dismiss people and hold on to grudges, so she keeps me in check constantly. 

Ken has such a way with people in general tbh; she’s amazing at networking and remembering little things about people, and whether it’s in a social or work context, she’s extremely good at making people feel included and not left out.

The greatest thing about my sister though, is how passionate she is about access and diversity work. I think I get a bit too much credit sometimes for my job and helping others through it, because don’t get me wrong, I do love being a doctor, but people forget that it is also my JOB. 

Kenny’s altruism is all in her own time, outside work. She sits on various boards (a primary school, her university college, her church, and our local theatre to name a few) and also tutors students, with the aim of widening access and creating schemes that make it easier for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to succeed. The thing about my sister is that she really truly goes out of her way to help people, and she does so quietly, without making a big deal of the amazing work she does behind the scenes.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. My twin sister is amazing and she encourages me to be better in every way.

Love you lots, Ken, and happy birthday to us, you da best xox

That Time I Was On BBC News

I’ve officially come to the end of my first year as a junior doctor (more on this to come in a separate post), and I was given the opportunity to be interviewed by BBC Look North last week, for a piece on racism in the NHS.

Ever since I did a presentation to junior doctors at my hospital on micro-aggressions I’ve personally experienced, the last two weeks have been a whirlwind of meetings with my hospital’s Medical Education team, the BAME Leadership Network, the Trust Organisational Development team, and the CHIEF EXECUTIVE.

It’s all been a bit overwhelming to be honest, but the long story short is that my hospital is now trying to raise more awareness of micro-aggressions and more subtle manifestations of racism, as part of new diversity and inclusion initiatives, as these are all too commonly experienced by ethnic minorities.

I’ve been so honoured to be asked to be part of a steering group and the committee driving this, as it is an issue I feel very strongly about, and I’m feeling super positive about the potential this has to make a difference.

So it was great to be able to talk about all this on the news, as part of the ongoing discourse. Still very strongly believe that the onus shouldn’t always be on the people on the receiving end of offensive comments to keep calling them out though, so to all new doctors, make sure you speak up on the wards if colleagues/patients say problematic things.

(And as they’ve always done, black lives STILL matter by the way, even if your newsfeeds have gone silent.)