Promoting excellence in medical education and ensuring we all achieve our potential

One of the real joys of working in the medical profession is working with and learning from our colleagues. We all work in multiple and changing teams, and this can be a very rewarding experience, although sometimes challenging. Teams work best when everyone feels valued, included, and able to contribute. This allows us all to perform and learn at our best. 

More than ever, we are aware of the rich diversity of our team members and its great potential to enable our teams to be more creative, innovative and effective in delivering high quality care for our patients. For all team members to feel valued, all of us need to recognise, understand and celebrate our differences. This requires us to be proactive and consider how each one of us can contribute to making all members feel part of our multi-professional teams.

Our Associate Dean who leads work on Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity, Dr Charu Chopra, has sought insights from trainers and trainees on promoting inclusivity. This has resulted in 5 key messages:

• Active allyship
• Promoting belonging cultures in the workplace
• Becoming sponsors and mentors for others
• Seeking to understand and value others
• Fostering compassionate cultures of practice

These are described in the attached poster. As educational leads, our aim is to promote these qualities with the Directors of Medical Education in the Health Boards and Undergraduate Leads.  Cultures of organisations are changed by the people within the organisation – that’s every one of  us. We hope this poster helps you to think about behaviours and cultures in your areas of work,  and to consider how you can further support this.