My career has taken an unexpected path, and I’ve come to realise that that’s OK. There’s more than one way to be a paediatrician and perhaps this Dinwoodie RCPCH fellowship has been a great example of that.
Two years ago, I arrived at the RCPCH office in London for the first time. I was greeted by friendly faces, people who were passionate about supporting paediatricians to improve the health of children and young people. Since then, I’ve lived and breathed Thrive Paediatrics, empowering, advocating and educating paediatricians to improve their own personal wellbeing and the wellbeing and working lives of their colleagues.
Understanding what helps us thrive has allowed us to... bring compassion into leadership, build connection and belonging...
During this time, the Thrive team has heard countless stories of the pressures and exhaustion that doctors are experiencing right now. But we’ve also heard stories of hope, support and fulfilment. Understanding what helps us thrive at work has allowed us to amplify these behaviours, bring compassion into leadership, build connection and belonging, promote inclusion, challenge incivility and celebrate the diversity of our workforce.
As my fellowship draws to a close, I’ve reflected on where Thrive Paediatrics is now and what we’ve achieved as a team over the last couple of years.
It can be hard to know where to start when we want to improve wellbeing. The Roadmap for transforming working lives of paediatricians offers a framework of what good looks like, a map of how things could be different. We’ve run workshops, teaching paediatricians how to use this framework to identify things that are going well and areas that could be improved.
The Thrive Resource Hub on RCPCH Learning provides real-life examples of good practice. These bring the Roadmap to life and present ideas and inspiration of what you might want to try out locally. Take a risk, give it a go, if it doesn’t work, that’s OK! The hub also provides evidence to back up business cases, create teaching presentations or facilitate CPD. Finally, we’ve created a lived experience section where paediatricians have kindly and courageously shared their own stories of vulnerability and navigating challenging times, highlighting the things that helped them thrive again.
We’ve had great feedback about the hub. It’s helped people feel like they’re not alone and offered others concrete ways to support colleagues who might be going through tough times.
...we saw the power we all have to influence the wellbeing and working lives of our colleagues
Finally, we’ve been working with paediatricians in South East Scotland and East of England to pilot two Wellbeing and Innovation Networks, regional communities of paediatricians that come together, share stories, resources and work together to bring about change. Our latest network events were empowering and educational days. We witnessed the impact of collaboration and education and we saw the power we all have to influence the wellbeing and working lives of our colleagues.
Though my fellowship with the College is ending, Thrive Paediatrics is very much still here, so this conversation isn’t going away and the rest of the team will continue with this work.
This role has been an amazing opportunity for me personally, a chance to grow and develop as a leader and help start conversations across the country that I’m hopeful will continue. So, though it’s bye from me, the Thrive team is still available at thrive@rcpch.ac.uk or through the Thrive web pages. Keep an eye out for the next stages of the project – it’s going to be great!