A group of #150Leaders attended the Healthcare Leadership Academy Conference in December. Some of the students reflect on the opportunity to attend:
I am a yes woman. I try and say yes to every opportunity that comes my way that I know I will benefit from. Learning comes in so many forms, not just in the way of a lecture hall or clinical placement. So, when an invitation to the Healthcare Leadership Academy dropped in my inbox, I said yes! Yes to the conference and yes to spending some quality time with some of the #150Leaders and as it was in London, it was a win win for me!
When the conference agenda came through with the list of speakers, I had a quick glance and saw only one name that was familiar to me, previous conferences I’ve been to I’ve recognised most of the names. This conference was different to most that I have been to in the past couple of years, I’ve attended mainly conferences with nurses at the forefront, this conference was different in that it was medic heavy and it showed in the list of speakers. How fortunate to be able to attend a conference that was different to my norm. To hear about leadership and resilience from medics, to see the similarities that are discussed at other events discussed at the Healthcare Leadership Academy. In my mind, it cemented the importance of us all working together.
#150Leaders has the right idea, pairing students with coaches who are not from their direct field. There are huge benefits of inter-linking between different healthcare professionals to share ideas, give different views and build each other up. I can see a future potential with the Healthcare Leadership Academy, which appears to already have a strong foundation, in including more nurses and AHPs into the fold and this will enable more mentoring/coaching to happen across the different fields.
Zoe Carciente
A takeaway for me was that I recognised the importance of leadership in collaboration between healthcare professions, and that this collaboration can reach beyond direct health. Directions within our professions are looking for more innovative, globalised pathways that will unite and broaden our delivery of care. For example embracing new technologies, AI and centralised digital systems. We as future leaders need to embrace our ideas or our colleagues, through keeping momentum in our passion to delivery quality care.
Becky Crisp
The Healthcare Leadership Conference was a great opportunity to further develop my leadership skills. The day covered many interesting topics and I particularly enjoyed the workshops. The workshops allowed us to connect with medics, whilst comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences of our roles. In the future, it would be beneficial to see more student nurses at the conference to enable more shared learning and understanding of our role in practice.
Ricky Baker
One keynote speaker discussed equality, social injustice and overcoming barriers as women in leadership or ethnic minorities, while one keynote speaker highlighted that currently there is “snowy white peaks in healthcare leadership”, suggesting toxic masculinity and poor attitudes towards women in leadership, covering some really important topics which I feel passionate about and were important topics to present on within this conference.
Georgina Henry