Give yourself some “hippo time” to wallow in the mud was a piece of wellbeing advice given to medical professionals who met in an online hub designed to give them a dedicated space to come together.
The new “medical huddle” is based at Hazelwood House with the aim of bringing together healthcare professionals to meet, talk, inform and support each other.
Wellbeing is fundamental to self-development, according to senior civil servant Carol Dutch who spoke to the medical hub on “Developing Self and Others”. You need to do some work on yourself in order to get to a place where you can develop others.
Developing yourself is more than just climbing the career ladder. It’s about consistently growing your own knowledge, skills and abilities. This, says Carol Dutch, is what will bring out the best in you and inspire growth in others.
The new medical hub plans to offer a range of talks to help medical professionals to give good service. After the rigours of the pandemic, it’s not surprising that mental health issues came up early on.
“What can we do with emotions?” This question was answered by Clare Bremner, a cognitive behaviour therapist working in Glasgow.
Clare challenged the busy medical professionals to think about whether they might be too busy to allow themselves positive feelings such as joy and peace. Are you judging your emotions? Are you asking yourself what you should or shouldn’t feel? What messages are you sending yourself? Emotions can be regulated with compassion, Clare told the meeting, and pointed to the work of Professor Paul Gilbert who has pioneered compassion focused therapy.
Solution focused therapy is an approach which looks at the present and future to help people move forward. This helps you to imagine a problem has gone and to act as if it has. What’s the first difference you’ll notice?
You won’t hit the snooze button, you’ll jump out of bed, smell the coffee and enjoy your breakfast, singing as you go!
Medical hub co-ordinator Dr Anne Williams said: “We’ve got lots of ideas in the mix for this hub. Contributions to our brainstorming session included sharing Covid-related problems, the role of AI in healthcare, sharing good team work and raising morale.”
