Engaging Junior Doctors

The NHS cannot afford to let its junior workforce become disengaged. Wathes & Spurgeon. (FMLM pub.)

I've been delivering leadership and management workshops for junior doctors over the last couple of months. It has given me fresh insight into the challenges faced by this part of the medical workforce and the personal pressures these dedicated people are facing. A paper really worth reading on the engagement of junior doctors is recently published by the Faculty of Medical Leadership & Management (FMLM). You can download it from their website HERE. A key finding in this exploratory study undertaken by Wathes and Spurgeon for the FMLM, is that the transitionary nature of junior doctors working lives is a key barrier to their engagement and involvement in service improvement. If you are only around for a few months (i.e. in your Foundation Training) how can you really be expected to be integrated thoroughly and therefore engaged meaningfully? However this unique perspective that junior doctors have of the service - seeing and experiencing many different approaches and ideas is worth harnessing and the energy and passion of juniors is always impressive. However the government's mishandling of the junior doctors contract has adversely affected this energy and passion, meaning that engaging and integrating junior doctors is going to be even more challenging in the future.

...their energy must be tapped not sapped ." Bruce Keogh.