The current difficulty in recruiting, retaining, and ensuring the wellbeing of doctors has recently been described as a crisis, with health organisations warning it is a greater threat to the NHS than lack of funding. Yet this is set against a background of an ageing and expanding population with complex health needs – increasing the demands we put on doctors and making it even more important that they can operate at their best.
How then should we prepare and educate students and junior doctors for modern medical practice? Advancing Medical Professionalism (AMP), argues that enabling and supporting doctors to develop their professional identities is an important part of the answer and outlines practical approaches to support this.
The report was developed by Oxford University’s Healthcare Values Partnership and the Royal College of Physicians (RCP).
Our Official Fellow and Tutor in Ethics, Professor Joshua Hordern, co-authored the AMP report; and says: “Most doctors go into the profession with a strong sense of vocation and commitment. But heavy workloads and the increasingly complex context in which they practice take their toll. We hope the approaches in AMP can support doctors in developing their vocation and professional identity, and refreshing their joy and confidence in the work they do. We also hope that the report’s practical ideas for institutional culture and practice will enable organisational leaders and managers at all levels to support doctors in sustaining their professional identity over the long-term.”
Now Oxford Healthcare Values Partnership is working with colleagues in Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to embed the report’s approaches in clinical training and practice. Further details: https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/research-impact/advancing-medical-professionalism
