Dear colleagues,
After a month of acting in the role of Chief Medical Officer I would like to reflect on the themes of purpose and professionalism. Having met nearly all directors of clinical training at Metro North I was heartened by how driven they were to also inculcate in our trainees the ethos of medicine.
The Hippocratic oath as we know it (and as many would know) is actually a contemporary rewriting of the original but the themes remain – professionalism, diligence, humility, empathy and scholarship. It struck me that these directors of clinical training foster equally the development of non-clinical attributes that make the best of us.
We plan to meet shortly to share ideas on how our education programs could be structured to provide the leadership skills we expect our doctors to have; and then implement it. I’m grateful to Dr Catriona Slater, Dr Amber Winter, Dr Stephanie Hadikusomo and Dr James Macdonald for including me in what I envisage will be a joint effort for all our junior doctors at Metro North. I also look forward to participating in junior doctor training in all our hospitals, in my favourite subject of clinical reasoning.
On another note, you will be pleased to know that our access to UpToDate has been renewed the next five years. Investment in this resource was significant given the number of doctors in our health service. I would like to thank sincerely our hospitals’ Executive Directors for funding this from their operational budget.
Finally, I would like to sign off with an aphorism from Dr Edward Trudeau, an accomplished American physician who also established the first laboratory to study tuberculosis in the US. Despite the advances of modern medicine, our vocation challenges us with sickness and death despite our best efforts. It is a quote I occasionally reflect on during ward rounds, when confronted with the inevitabilities of our profession.
“To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort…always.”
I look forward to providing further updates next month. If I can assist in the meantime, please feel free to contact me by email.
Best wishes,
Alex