Dean's Update | Issue 2 | 2020
Remembrance, recognition, reflection. Stepping beyond the here and now and allowing the past to project us to better versions of ourselves. From the formal global remembrance of medics, whose dedication to a duty of care was resolute despite the rages of war, like our own Frances Ivens and Noel Chavasse, to the memories of inspirational family, patients, colleagues and teachers who have shaped our own journey.
Things are not easy just now. It is right that we recognise the extra commitment being shown by all our NHS colleagues just now in their battle to preserve healthcare, and equally that we recognise our own fears and reactions to all that is going on around us.
Together, let’s draw on this time of remembrance and reflection to put our fears and frustrations into context. I wonder who has inspired you? What moments stand out? An inspirational clinician in my own life was my first consultant as a house officer/FY1. It was not that he was a professor, or an expert clinician, it was how he talked to patients, to junior staff, to porters. With genuine interest and consideration for all. A national leader, his advice at key points of my own career has been valued. And yet, the greatest inspiration came long after he retired, from watching how his personal life embodied his belief in care, and his determination to make the most of each day, as his wife vanished into the abyss of dementia. His devotion to her and his fortitude were truly inspirational.
And amongst us each day there are those who light up our lives. When I feel tired, I only have to look to the many dedicated staff across the School who have been working ridiculous hours to find ways around all the challenges that a pandemic creates for the provision of a medical course, not least our clinical skills team who have turned up, day in, day out to ensure you can have superb teaching, and our placement teams for whom each day seems to bring new aspects to juggle. Equally, I would like to thank the many of you who have made me smile - with your messages of encouragement, with how you have grasped the clinical opportunities of each day with enthusiasm (even when they are not those initially intended in the day), with hearing how your interest and thanks has boosted the weary clinicians around you, and with seeing your determination to find lots of new ways to have fun together, within the safety restrictions that apply. Things are indeed not easy, but they are much easier when we all support each other.
In this season of remembrance, I hope you will join me in recognising and reflecting on those moments and those people who have lit up your lives, some time ago, or recently, and look together, beyond this troublesome present, towards what really matters.
Professor Hazel Scott
Dean of the School of Medicine