Future Leaders Programme

Future Leaders Programme Report BSSH 2022-2023

I write this report, with huge gratitude for the support and funding BSSH was able to provide to enable me to take part in this Programme. I sought funding for a place to enable me to develop leadership skills particularly with Mentorship in mind. I had developed a local Mentorship Scheme for Birmingham Orthopaedic trainees in my training Deanery with great success. Following this, I hoped to be able to ‘roll out’ the scheme to other deaneries and pass on some of my own learning experiences as well as some of the ‘best bits’ of my scheme. The Future leaders programme however, offered me both this and much more.

Regarding my Mentorship Programme, I was able to communicate with the then President of the BOA, Deborah Eastwood, to present to her some of the highlights of my Scheme and its set up. She supported and enabled me to upload a screencast onto the BOA website, where I talk through a 10-point plan to set up a mentorship scheme as well as uploading generic documents that can support this. https://www.boa.ac.uk/careers-in-t-o/mentorship-guidance.html These documents include: a guide to selection process for transparency, a mentorship agreement document to be used my mentor and mentee to set up the relationship, as well as an escalation document to help if any issues arise with either mentor or mentee. This was promoted through the Journal of Trauma and Orthopaedics as well as via social media.

The mentorship scheme here in Birmingham is still going strong and we have recently had our third round of matching for new ST3s and rematching for others. The feedback received from trainees have been very positive, including comments such as ‘excellent pairing’, ‘very helpful’, ‘productive and natural’ and ‘really useful’. Having an awareness of the importance of stakeholders in promoting this programme, really enabled me to confidently speak up and out to others to assist in the promotion of the Mentorship Scheme.

Aside from my ambition in practice, I was able to learn about all aspects of leadership during this informative Programme. I was able to delve into my own personal characteristics and identify my ‘drivers’ to better learn about my own style of leadership. I was also able to learn and practice techniques in how to change the communication style to prevent ‘parent: child’ communication, for example with other consultants (now colleagues, previously trainers) and how this is more productive and healthier for all parties involved!

I was educated in technical leadership which was an area I had less experience. By learning how to interpret run charts, delve into the mechanics of the NHS working team; I feel better placed to discuss strategic plans and to make changes. Interestingly, I have also found that learning about the early adopters and the laggards (when introducing new projects), very insightful and I have been able to intelligently navigate different characters to try to pursue new ideas.

A theme that ran through the course was the importance of being able to talk, potentially to a large group of people and engage with them in such a way that others will listen and take onboard the information or message you would like to pass on. Being able to present yourself as being authentic, honest, and trustworthy, by demonstrating experience and knowledge as well as humility was very well explained.

Finally, being able to ‘tell a story’ and use key elements to do so (simplicity, humour, the ‘stickiness factor’, repetition, visual and tactile aids), was particularly memorable for me. This has become my screencast for the BOA FLP Alumni. A short video using the technique of story telling to demonstrate how to make your storytelling effective and how storytelling can effect change. I hope to use these skills throughout my career in hand and wrist surgery, to promote healthier and happier working lives for all.

Summary report

I moved from Fellowship to locum consultant during the program and we discussed my project of improving the management of distal radial fractures against BSSH guidelines. When I commenced my post that was only one wrist surgeon at this trust site with one general trauma list session.

The changes we have implemented are as follows:

1. We re-established cross site communication between orthopaedic hand & wrist surgeons at Wythenshawe, Manchester Royal / Trafford and North Manchester General. Through communication we have re-started using the MDT and increased collaboration.

2. We are utilising capacity and case load management: in that our trauma nurses at each site communicate theatre utilisation and the waiting case load such that distal radial fractures (including other injuries) waiting for surgical management can be shared and transferred between surgeons, sites and list.

3. We have increased the number of specialist Wrist surgeons from a single session per week to 3 sessions per week with the availability to increase this to 7 sessions if required and the waiting trauma allows.

4. Specialist input: A Hand & Wrist surgeon is available in the morning trauma meeting providing opinion and management plans for every week day at our site.

5. Cold site utilisation: We have increased flexibility in the utilisation of the cold site operating to allow off loading the hot site of ambulatory patients with a distal radial fracture.

Finally, I am in discussion with the head of hands about utilising one of our other cold sites on a 1:4 rota for a WALANT list but with a scope for future regional anaesthesia meaning we can use this for distal fractures.