
In this episode, colorectal surgeon and Clinical Lead for the College's Excellence in Surgical Supervision (ESS) course, Dan Beral, leads a panel discussion on trainee wellbeing, how trainers can facilitate conversations with their trainees on mental health, as well as some of the barriers to having these important discussions.
Dan is joined for this episode by Zaid al-Najjar, Medical Director for NHS Practitioner Health, colorectal consultant Shirley Chan, and orthopaedic trainee Robyn Brown.
There are many resources online for wellbeing and mental health, but here are some that might be particularly relevant for surgeons, as selected by Robyn Brown:
NHS Practitioner Health
Starting the conversation tips
Having a conversation around mental health
NHS How to have a wellbeing conversation
Resources for having a wellbeing conversation
Mental health language and stigma
Time to Talk day posters for workplace
Looking after employees’ wellbeing
Parents in Surgery RCS
BOA resources for parents
Dec 1, 2023
46 min

October is Black History Month in the UK, and this month's theme is 'Celebrating Our Sisters.' For this month's episode, RCS England's Diversity & Inclusion Manager, Corriene Bailey-Bearfield sits down with orthopaedic consultant, Samantha Tross for a candid conversation about personal journeys, social responsibility, and Black History Month itself.
Oct 23, 2023
29 min

This is the third episode in our ongoing series on the theme of Ethical Leadership, presented by Salman Ahmed and Aya Musbahi. This time around, they are joined by Professor Joyce Liddle of Northumbria University for a conversation on public value in the healthcare service. The discussion covers what value looks like for a public body like the NHS in terms of service delivery, who creates this value, and what this means for surgeons and other healthcare professionals. We hope listeners will be able to take away what they hear today and consider what value creation looks like in their own workplaces.
As always, we are looking to hear from you, so please do reach out to us on social media, or email us at [email protected]
Sep 1, 2023
43 min

When a parent, grandparent, caregiver or any significant adult in a child's life is going through a stressful time, children can sense it. Children often try to rationalise the stress they feel from others and draw their own conclusions about what is happening to those around them.
As surgeons, we often overlook the importance of suggesting to the patient that they should discuss the impact of a diagnosis or treatment plan with
family, particularly the children in their lives, which will have a positive impact on those around them. In this episode, Professor Arunthathi Mahendran,
Institute Director for the Institute of Heath Science Education, leads the conversation with Louise Dalton, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Dr.
Elizabeth Rapa, Senior Post Doctoral Researcher on how to communicate with children when a family member is expected to undergo medical treatment.
Our guests share insights and advice on how to have these conversations with children following a diagnosis and provide prompts that
healthcare professionals can use to ensure families have the awareness and tools to approach the topic themselves. Below we have also provided links to
resources that offer a step-by-step guide for talking about illness, tailored to both healthcare professionals and families.
For healthcare professionals: https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/files/research/guide-for-hcps.pdf
For families: https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/files/research/guide-for-families.pdf
Don't miss out on this crucial conversation; tune in now to hear from experts in this field.
Apr 25, 2023
18 min

February is LGBTQ+ History Month, and for us that means returning to a topic that we’ve touched on a few times over the life of this podcast, and that is issues facing queer surgeons in the workplace. Up to this point, we’ve focused exclusively on the experiences of LGBTQ+ surgeons in the UK, but for this episode, we are featuring members of our own Pride in Surgery Forum (aka Prism) in conversation with members of Pride in Medicine, a multispecialty group of doctors in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Through this podcast, we wanted to highlight common issues facing LGBTQ+ clinicians in another country, explain different approaches being taken to gaining LGBTQ+ inclusion and visibility, and discuss how perceptions of the impacts of homophobia and transphobia differ between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ people.
This episode features Pride in Surgery Forum (PRiSM) chair and consultant vascular surgeon Ginny Bowbrick with PRiSM vice-chair and orthopaedic registrar Karen Chui, in conversation with members of Pride in Medicine: general surgeon Richard Turner and general surgery follow Matt Marino.
As a note on terminology, this podcast uses the term "Mardi Gras," which, for listners outside Australia refers to the Pride Festival in Sydney.
Feb 24, 2023
37 min

This episode centres around the perspectives of Muslim women in surgery, and in particular the challenges faced by hijab-wearing Muslim women in both theatre environments and in their trusts. Featuring a panel led by core surgical trainee Azra Khatun, along with colorectal consultant and RCS Council Member Nuha Yassin, vascular registrar Nina Al-Saadi and paediatric registrar Farah Roslan, this podcast aims to show a range of experiences that hijab-wearing women face in the surgical world, while offering guidance and encouragement to those coming through medical school and aspiring to a career in surgery.
As Azra says in a recent RCS Bulletin article on her work on the Surgical Scarf initiative:
'Research demonstrates that the lack of consideration for religious dress codes in the operating theatre has compromised access to training and surgical career pathways for a growing number of Muslim women surgeons and medical students. Many women were left feeling anxious and bullied, subsequently opting for alternative specialties. During a recent meeting of the British Islamic Medical Association’s dress code group, it became clear that each of us from different UK hospitals shared similar experiences of not being able to wear our headscarf in theatre. Many of us were being told to leave the theatre and to wear a theatre cap while some reported that surgery could not be a career option because of this.'
For the recent Bulletin articles by the featured panellists, please see the links below.
The Surgical Scarf Project by Azra Khatun
Cut from the Same Cloth? by Nina Al-Saadi et al
Dec 8, 2022
50 min

Though numerous studies have been undertaken showing the efficacy of drug therapies for breast cancer prevention, many primary and secondary care professionals remain unaware that these preventative treatments exist. In fact, drugs such as Tamoxifen are both extremely safe and provide protection long after the suggested five-year course of treatment.
Produced in collaboration with Health Innovation Manchester and featuring a panel consisting of breast surgeon Ms Rosie Stanton; Macmillan GP Clinical Cancer Lead Dr Nicola Weaver; Dr Sacha Howel, medical oncologist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester; and Dr Gareth Evans, professor of medical genetics and cancer epidemiology at the University of Manchester, this podcast aims to give surgeons and other health care professionals an overview of the treatments available, how they work and which groups of patients would most benefit from them.
To send us feedback or propose a topic for a future podcast, please get in touch at [email protected]
Visit Health Innovation Manchester for more information on their suite of breast cancer prevention learning resources.
Jul 28, 2022
31 min

In part one of our ongoing investigation of Ethical Leadership with Aya Musbahi and Salman Ahmed, listeners were invited to consider the concept of “ethical leadership,” as well as how this can be applied to surgeons in the modern health service. This second episode discusses the issue of efficiency in the context of healthcare, and how questions of efficiency and service delivery often become issues of ethics and leadership. The episode is structured in two segments, with the first featuring Aya and Salman discussing the realtionship between equity and efficiency in the context of issues such as employee performance; while in the second segment, Aya and Salman invite Kevin Magee, Chief Executive of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust for a conversation on how health organisations can become ethically led, given current pressures such as resource scarcity and increasing wait times for operations.
Opinions expressed in this podcast are the speakers' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Jul 1, 2022
44 min

Despite advances in the field of sexual health medicine in recent years, there remain persistent myths and misconceptions, both amongst the general public, as well as between medical professionals who do not specialise in this area. Indeed, the stigmas surrounding conditions such as HIV and syphilis may have repercussions for patient care if health practitioners are unable to properly administer these patients as a result of poor information. This series of discussions, featuring colorectal surgeon and Women in Surgery Chair, Tamzin Cuming, and sexual health physician Diarmuid Nugent, aims to provide surgeons with some basic information on the subject so that they may confidently treat patients in their surgical clinics when these conditions and issues may be relevant.
The first episode in this series will discuss recent advances in HIV medicine, such as PrEP and U=U, and how these developments have changed the way healthcare professionals treat patients living with HIV. Listeners are encouraged to describe how these concepts may impact their own clinical practice, recognise when it may be appropriate to test for HIV in the surgical clinic and discuss the evolving language in this area, noting why some terms may contribute to stigma.
May 31, 2022
40 min

The authority gap between men and other genders in surgery will perhaps take years to equilibrate, but is this gap getting wider with more women of colour entering surgical specialities? Is it natural for men to automatically assign women in surgery to the roles of a scrub nurse, a translator, a scribe, or a receptionist? The podcast features the hurdles that women of colour experience in the workplace and how they reclaim their roles as surgeons.
Apr 29, 2022
45 min
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