Training Blog

Most people would not even consider taking an exam without acquiring the relevant knowledge, skills and insight in preparation for it and therefore why would you approach perhaps one of the most important events in your life, getting the right consultant job, with any greater uncertainty than there needs to be? You wouldn’t. In fact, we know that you’d want to absolutely ensure you stood the best possible chance of success and that is why we have developed the Medicology approach to consultant interview success. It’s your future and so we don’t believe you should take any more chances than necessary.

The Medicology approach consists of the following:

• Gold standard, low number, specialty-specific consultant interview course
• Access to consultantinterviews.co.uk, allowing you to see example questions, hot topics, key strategies, CV guidance and more
• Psychological profiling to understand your likely strengths and weaknesses, as well as their match to your specialty
• Back up coaching – fail to get appointed on 4 occasions and we’ll examine the reasons why, as well as coach you to success

CONSULTANT INTERVIEW SKILLS OPEN PROGRAMME

Pre-Interview visits – creating personal presence & deriving benefit
Understanding your consultant interview panel
Building rapport with interviewers
Effective communication skills within interviews
Advanced interview techniques
Psychological techniques for increased rapport, impact & clarity
Understanding the reasoning behind the question
Answering questions within the context of who’s asking – understanding the interviewer
Recognising the effects of your internal wiring on your approach to answering questions
Effectively structuring your answers
Talking about yourself & showing the real you – do & don’t guidance
The answers you must have – knowing what to research
Handling difficult or unexpected questions
Dealing with ethical questions
Dealing with political questions
Developing business or commercial healthcare knowledge
Effective presentation skills
Demonstrating initiative, personality, leadership and political awareness
Understanding your body language
Question practice with a 1:6 instructor-participant ratio

Benefits and objectives

• Get the best jobs by adopting the right strategies for your specific specialty
• Develop appropriate confidence in all interview situations
• Communicate in the right language and with the appropriate degree of confidence for your specialty
• Utilise the full range of interview strategies to influence the result
• Increase awareness of the necessary key topics
• Gain valuable practice and personal feedback

Course type and teaching methods

The course consists of an engaging mixture of delivery styles including lectures, discussions and exercises all designed to ensure you the highest possible success in your future consultant interview. A substantial component of the afternoon is dedicated to interview practice in groups of 6 people with each person having individual mock interview questions in front of the small group. This structure is extremely successful in recreating the pressures of a real interview whilst giving each person the opportunity to rehearse in a safe environment whilst receiving valuable feed back from a trained facilitator and the small group of fellow attendees. All candidates learn from listening to others answers, reflection and tutor feedback. Topics covered include the political agenda, clinical governance, ethical decisions, clinical leadership, dealing with difficult colleagues, conflict, supporting junior doctors and teaching. These sessions are facilitated by senior Medicology coaches and by experienced, trained consultants with direct experience of interviewing for consultant colleagues.

Senior doctors are calling for human tissue to be routinely kept for genetic testing in cases where young people die without explanation. It is thought that the DNA from such samples may reveal an unsuspected inherited condition and save relatives’ lives. One doctor said pathologists should be encouraged to take the tissue and ask for consent later if necessary.

But the Human Tissue Authority said it was “alarmed” about public calls for practitioners to break the law.
The Human Tissue Act requires that appropriate consent is in place before the tissue is removed from a deceased person. During the implementation of the Coroners and Justice Bill we will consider the additional procedures that might be required to enable families’ wishes in this respect to be achievedquote here
Ministry of Justice spolesperson

Dr Mary Sheppard, of the Royal Society of Medicine’s pathology section and a leading expert on Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD), said some coroners did ask relatives already but others felt it was not part of their remit. She said: “If coroners routinely requested consent from the family to retain material for DNA testing at autopsies we would be able to find out far more about how the person died and possibly prevent other deaths in the same family.” She estimates that every year roughly 800 young people under the age of 35, apparently fit and healthy, die suddenly from unsuspected heart disease or without explanation.

The government has recently set up a database operated by the NHS Information Centre to collect reliable data from pathologists on these deaths.

• Inherited heart problems that can cause SCD:
• Long QT syndrome – a disorder of the electrical activity of the heart
• Brugada Syndrome- irregularities of the electrical activity of the heart
• Inherited cardiomyopathies or heart muscle diseases

Coroners are in charge of inquests and post mortem examinations and overseen by the Ministry of Justice.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice said: “We recognise that some families who lose their loved ones tragically early would want a more extensive post mortem than is usually required by a coroner whose duty is to establish the cause of death. “During the implementation of the Coroners and Justice Bill we will consider the additional procedures that might be required to enable families’ wishes in this respect to be achieved. More generally, and in relation to specific research projects, the new Chief Coroner is expected to issue guidance on the handling for all requests relating to research into the causes of deaths which coroners investigate, and to provide advice to coroners on how they may or may not be able to co-operate.”

Alison Cox, founder and chief executive of the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) said: “In the past two years we have seen the coroners taking huge steps to support families after the tragedy of a young sudden cardiac death. “DNA testing is clearly a potential resource for further information when it is possible to obtain it.”

Dr Paul Brennan, a clinical geneticist for the Northern Genetics Service, said there should be a change to coroners’ forms to deal specifically with consent for the pathologist to retain tissue for DNA extraction and storage. He said: “Until then, I would urge pathologists who have not had the opportunity to obtain consent, to think about taking these tiny tissue samples – usually a spoonful of blood or a cubic centimetre of spleen tissue – and then ask the relatives for consent. “If consent is not given, the tissue must, by law, be destroyed. But if it is not even taken in the first place, a huge potential benefit is lost.”

Adrian McNeil, chief executive of the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) said: “The HTA is alarmed about any public statement that urges practitioners to consider breaking the law governing consent and the taking of tissue for DNA testing. “We recognise Dr Brennan’s right, as a senior practitioner in the sector, to propose changes to the current law but cannot endorse what would be a clear breach of the legislation.”

Morale is one of the most significant factors affecting organisational performance with clear links to many adverse situations:

• High sickness & absence
• High staff turnover
• Poor performance
• Poor clinical outcome
• Low customer satisfaction ratings
• Reduced team effectiveness
• Conflict & obstruction
• Increased tribunals & grievances

Medicology MTI has been developed to address two specific needs:

a robust and sensitive measure of morale
a differential diagnosis of the factors positively or negatively influencing it

It consists of a series of questions around known influencing factors and takes the average person around 10 minutes to complete.

Robust Measure

Medicology MTI introduces two important processes to ensure that the morale measurement returned is both sensitive and representative.

Firstly, it utilises variance to assess morale, i.e. how far above of below neutral the score for a particular factor is for that person and thus avoids the weakness found in many systems that use an arbitrary scale.

Secondly, it asks the respondent to indicate how important a factor is and this is taken into account in the overall calculation. Coupled with variance, this creates an immensely sensitive measure.

Differential Diagnosis

Medicology MTI is designed to provide detailed analysis, reporting and guidance. Your morale report will include analysis by:

• overall score
• individual questions
• different staffing groups or departments

Furthermore, individual questions contribute to section morale scores, to help you identify problems in the following areas:

• Growth & Development
• Leadership & Management
• Personal Factors
• Relationships
• Work (the work itself)
• Workplace (the work environment)

This level of analysis and reporting allows you to not only assess morale in different staff groups but to diagnose any specific problem areas so that interventions may be applied.

Practical Information

Medicology MTI is designed to make your life easy:

• Run morale testing from a few to thousands swiftly and effortlessly
• Define which staff groups are most appropriate to you
• Re-run the survey at intervals (which can be set up automatically e.g. 3 monthly intervals) to assess how it is changing over time
• Bulk upload your staff from Microsoft Excel® or provide them to us and we’ll do it

For more information or to try out this great product for yourself see medicology mti

medicalperception.com from Medicology Ltd allows Trusts, PCTs, SHAs, Government, Pharmaceutical, Medical Equipment & Biotech companies, health service suppliers and more to access, survey and evaluate the mindset of health service staff, simply and cost-effectively. Medicology Ltd is also the leading provider of leadership, management and personal development for health service professionals, especially clinicians, meaning we spend most of our lives inside the heads of clinical staff, understanding how they think, how they evaluate problems, their similarities and differences from each other, their sources of meaning and more. That’s a very, very good place to be when designing meaningful, high quality research.

What can we do?

• Survey health professionals in every medical specialty
• Access the medical mind nationally and internationally
• Evaluate clinical perceptions around drug therapies
• Gauge perceptions and feelings about important issues
• Develop insight into clinical pathways
• Understand how professionals choose products & services
• Develop greater sales force effectiveness
• Evaluate job satisfaction & morale
• Run a series of evaluations over time

This is just a brief set of suggestions, so if you need something not on the list then simply ask.

Why medicalperception.com?

There are very compelling reasons to use medicalperception.com

• Highly cost-effective for the highest quality research
• Rapid deployment time
• Professional outward appearance
• Ability to retain and re-run research studies, gaining insight into trends over time
• Build in the ability to control for different psychologies
• Highly trusted, competent team
• Enormous degree of medical insight available in study design

Experts are warning that poor communication between hospital staff and with their patients is far too common and deeply damaging. According to the findings of a confidential review patients left out of the loop and staff clocking on and off without a handover was commonplace. Change in the hospital team structure over recent years has seen individual clinicians become “transient acquaintances during a patient’s illness rather than having responsibility for continuity of care”, says the NCEPOD report. It found a co-ordinated handover of patients between night and day staff only occurred in a quarter of the teams. In 13.5% of cases lack of communication compromised continuity of patient care.

In just over half (53%) of cases there was an apparent lack of input from senior doctors “leading to delays in giving patients timely and appropriate care”, report author and surgeon Ian Martin said. And 30% of the patients were not seen by a consultant within the recommended 12 hours after admission. In a fifth of patients who were not expected to survive on admission there was no evidence of any discussion between the health care team and either the patient or relatives on treatment limitation. Many “do not attempt resuscitation” orders were signed by very junior trainee doctors. NCEPOD chairman Professor Tom Treasure said the report vividly revealed the challenge medical teams face in making the transition between saving life and allowing natural death. “It should be ensured that patients achieve the best quality of life until they die. Effective team working and communication with patients, relatives and carers are fundamental to getting this right.”

Director of the Patients Association, Katherine Murphy, said: “These findings run the risk of undermining basic confidence in the NHS. Some of the examples are shocking. “NCEPOD is the nearest the NHS has to airline ‘near miss reporting’. Its findings must be acted upon, or problems will continue to plague vulnerable patients and their families.” John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said doctors had long been concerned that the loss of team working in hospitals had fuelled the risk of poor communication, and sub-standard patient care. He said the implementation of a 48-hour working week under the European Working Time Directive almost certainly meant that the problem had got worse since the latest study was carried out. Professor Black said the only way to address the problem was to opt out of the directive.

A Department of Health spokesperson said measures had been introduced to improve care – including an end of life strategy – since the report’s survey was carried out. “We are putting in place an extensive programme of health and social care training to support end of life care provision, including pilot projects to support the development of communication skills. He added that evidence from hospitals already implementing a 48-hour week showed a drop in mortality and no evidence of harm to patients. “Working together with the local NHS and the Royal Colleges we have set up a rigorous quality assurance process to give us an accurate picture of how EWTD is being implemented and so we can provide support where it is needed.”

Experts are warning that the cost of treating the growing number of people drinking heavily threatens to cripple NHS hospitals. If the trend continues the burden will be unsustainable with a quarter of England’s population consuming hazardous amounts, alcohol addiction already costs the NHS more than £2.7 billion a year.

The report claims that hospital care alone cannot solve the problem, but increasing out-of-hospital provision could be more cost effective. This would include GPs screening and counselling their patients on alcohol misuse. Trials suggest that brief advice from a GP, or practice nurse, leads to one in eight people reducing their drinking to within sensible levels. This, says the report, compares well with smoking cessation, where only one in 20 change their behaviour, changing the way alcohol-related services are delivered could save hospitals 1,000 bed days and Primary Care Trusts up to £650,000 a year, experts estimate.

Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “The nation’s growing addiction to alcohol is putting an immense strain on health services, especially in hospitals, costing the NHS over £2.7 billion each year.” And this sum has doubled in under five years. “This burden is no longer sustainable,” he said. “The role of the NHS should not just be about treating the consequences of alcohol related-harm but also about active prevention, early intervention, and working in partnership with services in local communities to raise awareness of alcohol-related harm.”

Steve Barnett, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “We hope this report helps to outline the scale of the problems facing the NHS and acts as a warning that if we carry on drinking in the way that we are currently, the bar bill will be paid in worse health and a health system struggling to cope.”

Two thirds of PCTs have adopted reducing alcohol-related hospital admissions as a local priority for the first time. “The department is providing Primary Care Trusts with the support, tools and incentives to deliver alcohol services in their own areas effectively according to local needs.”

NASA developed this technology to research plant growth in space, the US Military amongst others have done research into various health and healing benefits, including the treatment of cancer patients and bone marrow recipiants. Infrared light is an invisible part of the light spectrum including natural sunlight. Infrared therapy provides a lot of the benefits that sunlight provides us but without any of the harmful effects of solar radiation. The infrared heat can travel two or three inches into the skin and helps to increase blood flow and circulation plus nourishes and aids the regeneration of damaged tissues. Red Light Therapy is an up and coming technology that can provide relief from a number of conditions, can help rejuvenate skin and is completely safe and natural. Red Light Therapy stimulates collagen production in the skin providing results in weeks.

There are many uses for red light therapy:

• Rejuvenates your skin
• Removes lines, wrinkles and other signs of aging
• Effective acne treatment – killing the bacteria that cause acne
• Treats sun damaged skin
• Increases blood flow and circulation
• Aids in healing damaged skin, up to twice as fast
• Reduces and eliminates stretch marks
• Can help treat depression
• Relieves joint pain
• Reduces scarring
• Treats Eczema and Psoriasis
• Firms, tones and restores moisture to your skin

Sounds great doesn’t it? If you want to see the results for yourself check outRed Light Therapy they use the latest in high wattage infrared bulb technology in their beds but this technology has been used by NASA and others for a long time.

The NHS under the spotlight again! This is because they are being accused of not doing enough to protect staff from a daily barrage of punches, slaps and kicks. In the last 3 years there has ony been a 0.5% increase in sanctions against offenders, this is despite a promise of “zero tolerance” approach.

Some cases that have made it to court got dropped as it was deemed “not to be of public interest”. Surely the medical staff have the same rights as everyone else to go to work and do their job without fear of being attacked. Instead that basic right has been denied. The medical professionals are under enough strain as it is with the potential collapse of the institute that provides them with a job and the fact the NHS is stretched so much that there isn’t enough staff.

More should be done to protect those that provide such a valuable service, saving lives.

According to the University of London, the number of Down’s syndrome pregnancies has risen by more than 70% over the last 20 years. These statistics reflect the growing number of older women becoming pregnant, when there is a higher risk. An increase in the number of subsequent abortions and more antenatal diagnoses means slightly fewer children are being born with Down’s syndrome.

The number of Down’s syndrome pregnancies rose from 1,075 diagnoses in 1990 to 1,843 by 2008 in England and Wales. Despite this the number of Down’s pregnancies, the number of babies with Down’s syndrome has fallen by 1%, from 752 to 743. According to the study this is because improved antenatal screening means more Down’s pregnancies are being spotted and more abortions are taking place. Without the improved screening, the number of babies born with Down’s would have risen by 48%.

So what is Down’s syndrome?
A genetic disorder named after the British physician John Langdon Down, who identified it in 1866.
Inhibits the ability to learn and develop mentally.
About 60,000 people have Down’s syndrome in the UK.

Joan Morris, professor of medical statistics at Queen Mary, led the research and she said: “What we’re seeing here is a steep rise in pregnancies with Down’s syndrome but that is being offset by improvements in screening. Doctors told Natasha and Eddie Batha that there was a one-in-170 chance that their daughter Mia, who is now three, would be born with the condition, when it was discovered that Mia did have the condition they realised that it was not as bad as they had feared.

People seem to forget that there is a person behind the label who is just a little bit different, in some cases unless you were told a person has a specific condition you wouldn’t know. It would seem that if people were better informed about things like this then there may be fewer terminations because mothers are led to believe that if their child is diagnosed with something then it is the worst thing ever.

Given the current economic climate this is an important and timely conference, designed specifically to help address the challenge facing healthcare teams and organisations as they strive to manage costs in a period of growing financial famine. Whilst commencing with the drivers of financial change, the programme addresses the full breadth of issues surrounding achieving meaningful cost improvement without compromising clinical quality. Cost improvement will only be achieved with the hearts, minds and practical engagement of the clinical workforce itself and so this receives special attention in a practical, hard hitting but positive programme.

Medicology Conferences are designed to enable the widest possible audience to gain insight into and solutions
to the core issues facing healthcare professionals today, by providing a cost-effective and accessible platform for information migration, experience sharing, collaboration and knowledge management. Conference topics are identified utilising the following criteria:

• There is a pressing need to resolve challenges in that area
• A wider audience needs access to important insight
• The topic area warrants wider discussion
• The issue in question has significant impact on healthcare success

We are particularly committed to bringing knowledge, insight, strategies & skills to frontline healthcare
professionals, who often face the challenge of implementing major initiatives or resolving key challenges at the operational coalface. Doctors, Nurses, Allied and Business Professionals at all levels of the organisation need access to the insight brought to Medicology Conferences. Widely Accessible to the Right People
Clinical and other frontline staff often find it difficult to access the insight necessary to succeed and thrive in the modern environment because many healthcare conferences are organised, publicised and priced in a manner that precludes them from attending when in fact it is they who really need access to the insight. Medicology conferences are designed to address this very issue by:
• Carefully managing costs to ensure the lowest possible cost of attendance
• Utilising lower cost but high quality venues to ensure the right capacity at the right price
• Ensuring the widest possible publicity to the right people

To book onto this amazing conference Cost Improvement Conference