Documents for DSN AGM 2017 and What do we want from services for sick doctors?
Louise Freeman • 23 November 2017
Documents for DSN AGM 2017 - please print your own hard copies if you are coming to the AGM in person.
At last year's DSN conference, we had a discussion about the desirable characteristics of a service to treat sick doctors.
The results of our discussion are listed below:
- Confidentiality – unless safety issues -with clear boundaries between treating doctors and doctors who are colleagues.
- Location of treatment – not in the same places as your patients
- Consistency
- Recognising pre agreed plans e.g. treatment plans
- Autonomy
- Advance directive e.g. doc as patient expressed wishes regarding future treatment if unable to express own view at the time
- Shared Decision Making – ICE
- Expertise of treating doctor
- Power differential • Not your boss!
- Minimal waiting list
- Specific issues
- Doctors present late -like kids – compensate until they fall off a cliff
Dr Louise Freeman addresses barriers to access to work faced by medics with mental ill health needing reasonable adjustments.
Dr Louise Freeman is the co-chair of the Doctors' Support Network. Here, she talks about why prioritising your own health can feel difficult in times of crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr Serena Haywood on talking about her experience of mental ill health: 'The fear and isolation ... led me to take the risky decision to start talking about my mental health as much as I could to as many people as would listen. I was advised not to but did it anyway. And my life changed from there.'
Psychologist Caroline Elton discusses the difficult issue of talking about our own mental ill health. 'I don’t want to collude with the fantasy that depression, or any other mental illness, only happens to other people. It has certainly happened to me. '
CLANGERS, keeping well for medics, specialist support and creativity were all on the programme at our recent conference in Bristol.
Dr Cathy Wield discusses how and when to talk about our recovery from mental ill health.
DSN co-chairs, Dr Louise Freeman and Dr Angelika Luehrs, discuss how and why we are talking about our own mental health as doctors, including an explanation of our AndMe anti stigma campaign with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons' Mind Matters Initiative.
Dr Cathy Wield discusses how we often shy away from naming physician mental health by using the term 'physician health'.
BBC Radio Five Live discussion about Prof. Steve Robson's article recounting his experience of attempting suicide as a trainee doctor with comment from his colleague Dr Kate Tree and an interview with Dr Laura McGregor, consultant in emergency medicine
Clare Gerada: ' We can't keep photographing the problem (physician health) - we need to do something about it.'
