“Just imagine, for a second, if the emotional well-being of the medical workforce (and the healthcare workforce more generally) was accorded the same priority as the control of infection. Parity between the infective, and the affective, in other words. In Lister’s time, 45% of patients died of infection post-amputation. Today some reports suggest that over 50% of doctors experience burnout. Given this level of burnout (and of depression, and suicide) it would be hard to argue that that we don’t have a significant public health crisis on our hands. Is the comparison really so absurd?” 

Dr Caroline Elton, Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors, 2018

With reference to selection, management of transitions, exposure to trauma and racial inequalities - this talk by Dr Caroline Elton will explore how the psychological demands of healthcare work are often minimised or ignored. It will then move on to considering what needs to be done to redress these omissions. 

We will start promptly at 2 00pm with a workshop led by Dr Caroline Elton. After a short break (from 3.45-4pm) there will be an opportunity for supervision.

Dr Caroline Elton. Caroline did her undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford, was awarded a postgraduate fellowship to the University of Pennsylvania, before completing her Ph.D in the Department of Academic Psychiatry, UCL Medical School. She is a chartered psychologist and for more than 20 years has held a number of positions working with doctors. Her first role involved shadowing senior clinicians on ward rounds, in outpatient clinics and in operating theatres, as part of an initiative to challenge outdated models of medical education. Later she was appointed as Head of the Careers Unit, responsible for supporting trainee doctors across the whole of London. She has also worked as Head of the Extended Medical Degree Programme – the largest ‘widening participation’ medical degree course in the UK. Caroline has written extensively about doctors, the problems they face and how best to support them and in 2018, her book Also Human – the inner lives of doctors was published by Penguin Random House in the UK, and by Basic Books in the US. Following publication of Also Human she has been invited to speak and run workshops across the UK, in Ireland, the US and Australia. 

** Please email us if you would be interested to join us for this event. ****

COST: Members of ANPH free, non-members £15

The event will be hosted via Zoom.