Author: Kathryn Johnson

Unconscious bias training dates

Managing diversity is an important part of managing people, and involves valuing diverse points of view and supporting and empowering individuals with different backgrounds and experiences. Doing this successfully contributes to the overall success of Imperial, enhancing organisational performance and delivering several benefits including the attraction and retention of talented staff, improving motivation and productivity and reducing staff turnover costs as staff feel more valued. Diverse workplaces foster a high-achieving workforce that is competent, committed, creative and capable of managing and responding positively to change.

As our understanding of the importance of diversity awareness deepens, attention has been increasingly focussed on the more subtle aspects of diversity such as unconscious bias. The College now offers specific training on this subject and as a goal of Surgery and Cancer’s Athena SWAN action plan, we are aiming to get as many people attending the training as possible, especially senior staff involved with recruitment and individuals who have line management responsibility.

All sessions will be in the morning and will start at 9.30am.

17 March – St Mary’s Campus
19 March – South Kensington campus
26 March – Venue to be arranged

Can those wishing to attend please get in touch with Ann Kelly detailing their preferred date.

Mid-career Academic Women: Strategies, Choices and Motivation

An event is taking place in conjunction with Kings College to launch a recent research report entitled, ‘Mid-career Academic Women: Strategies, Choices and Motivation’.

This event will be at King’s College London, The Strand, on Monday 23rd March 4pm-6pm.

The purpose of the event is to share the key findings and recommendations from the research, funded by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, in which mid-career academic women were interviewed from a variety of London institutions about their career plans. There will be a chance to discuss and debate the findings and their implications. From 5pm there will be wine, soft drinks and nibbles.

All are welcome – academics, researchers, leaders, managers and anyone else with an interest in this subject. It would be useful if you could get in touch if you plan to attend.

Please email tania.de_st_croix@kcl.ac.uk to book your space, and we will send more details nearer the time.

Downton Abbey creator visits Imperial

BlastLord and Lady Fellowes met Imperial’s President Professor Alice Gast, before being given a flavour of some of the research taking place at the College’s Royal British Legion Centre for Blast Injury Studies.

The Centre, a UK first, is a collaboration between military and civilian clinicians, scientists and engineers including Surgery and Cancer’s Prof Alison McGregor, who was in attendance at the visit.

See the full College story here.

 

My Family Care: Summary for 2014

UntitledIn the College wide maternity survey in 2012 and the College wide paternity survey in 2013, 55% of women and 60% of men said that they would like to see an emergency back- up care service. In January 2014 Imperial College was the first university in the UK to use My Family Care Services to support their working parents and carers through their online portal giving access to their back up care network and range of other services.

If you would like to learn more about this service please see the My family care pages, where once registered you will have access to the wide range of services and resources they offer.

Imperial celebrates LGBT History Month

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Imperial is hosting a series of events throughout February to mark LGBT History Month.

Celebrated nationally, the month aims to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) history and raise awareness of issues affecting the LGBT community.

The month’s event will include social activities, inclusivity training courses, and a keynote lecture, as well as incorporating the launch of Imperial’s new policy to support trans staff. More information about what’s happening can be found here

Mentoring Scheme now open!

The Surgery & Cancer Mentoring scheme has been launched and is now open to all academic, research and support staff. If you are interested in having a mentor please use the contact form provided on the website. It is also a good idea to attend a workshop to learn what the scheme can offer you and what to expect from your mentoring relationship.

Next workshop – The next available mentoring workshop is running on Tuesday 24th March at South Kensington from 10 –1pm  – please email k.johnson@imperial.ac.uk if you would like to book a place. Workshops are for both potential mentors and mentees and are run by Fiona Richmond from the Learning and Development Centre. The sessions cover starting and ending the mentoring relationship, tools to use within the sessions, and managing boundaries. The workshops are participatory and designed to help people new to mentorship get started and for those who have mentoring experience to refresh their thinking.

We are developing a mentoring pool but still need more participants in order to meet demand and offer a wider range of experience. Not only is mentoring a vital part of a sustainable collegiate environment, it is also a thoroughly rewarding experience. Our scheme is running across all grades and job families but we have a particular need for more Academic and Clinical Academic staff at the moment. We would encourage anyone considering becoming a mentor to come along to a workshop and find out more with no obligation. There is plenty of support on hand for mentors including regular ‘debrief’ sessions.

The workshops are aimed at both potential mentors and mentees and are being held on the following dates:

Tuesday 24th March                       10 –1pm at South Kensington
Thursday 16th April                         1-4pm at Hammersmith
Wednesday 20th May                     10-1pm at St Mary’s

For more information about our Department of Surgery and Cancer scheme, mentoring in general, or to sign up for mentoring please visit the Surgery & Cancer mentor pages.

If you have any questions then please contact Kathryn Johnson (k.johnson@imperial.ac.uk)

The Age of Experience: Professor Jeffrey Shaw

You are all invited to a lecture hosted by Professor Jeremy Nicholson on Wednesday 11th of February 2015 from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM at South Kensington campus.

jeffreyshawThe presentation will be given by Professor Shaw, a pioneer in the field of computational arts, and Dean of the School of Creative Media at City University in Hong Kong, and will examine new paradigms for developing embodied museum experiences, based on the practices of New Media Art.

The talk will explore innovative interactive applications and fully immersive visualization systems that were jointly developed by Professor Jeffrey Shaw (City University Hong Kong) and Professor Sarah Kenderdine (University of NSW, Sydney).

More information and registration details can be found here.

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the Foyer of the Sir Alexander Fleming Building.

 

Complaints procedures faced by doctors risk harming patients, study suggests

ComplaintsA study by one of Surgery & Cancer’s Adjunct Professors, Prof Tom Bourne has been looking into how complaints procedures faced by doctors risk harming patients.

Doctors who go through complaints procedures experience high rates of serious depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, according to a new study.

Four out of five doctors also reported changing the way they treat their patients as a result of either complaints against themselves, or observing a colleague go through a complaints process.

The authors of the research say that by causing psychological ill health and encouraging defensive practice, the processes designed to hold doctors to account are having negative consequences for patients.

The findings come from a survey of 7,926 doctors published in BMJ Open. Read complete story here.

Prof Naomi Chayen gives outreach lecture

Prof Naomi Chayen gave an outreach lecture on the 8th January to a medical ethics group in North London, focusing on the research currently taking place within Computation and Systems Medicine, as well as ethical issues concerning pure research, rather than actual medical issues.

Surgery & Cancer want to try and capture all the outreach work going on in the Department, so if anyone has any news they want to share then please email Kathryn Johnson

Big Data: The future of Healthcare Innovation?

Imperial College Innovation Forum Launch Event
Big Data: The future of Healthcare Innovation?

Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. Big Data has been hailed to be the frontier for innovation, competition and productivity by leading firms around the world.

Join us at the Launch Event of Imperial College Innovation Forum where we have the experts at the forefront of Big Data discuss their thoughts and vision for Big Data and its role in healthcare innovation.

Date: Wednesday 28th January 2015
Time: 6.30 for 7pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre G16, SAF Building, South Kensington Campus, Imperial College London

Our speakers on the day are:

Best wishes,
ICIF team

Imperial Quality Improvement Sprints organised by Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust

Calling all creative problem solvers… 

Could your innovative ideas make a difference in our hospitals?

At Imperial College Healthcare we are continuously looking for new and better ways to improve patient experience. As a result we have launched a series of investigative 2-day events called Imperial Quality Improvement Sprints. For more information see the website.

Interested in taking part?

Whether you are an engineer, artist, musician, entrepreneur, or an organisation looking for a challenging and rewarding new experience for your staff, come and help us revolutionise healthcare at one of the events below:

Monday 2nd to Tuesday 3rd February, all day, W12 Conference Centre, Hammersmith Hospital
Monday 16th to Tuesday 17th March, all day, W12 Conference Centre Hammersmith Hospital

Please email IQISprints@imperial.nhs.uk or call 020 331 25443.

Further details are on the website.

New trial to evaluate intestine implant to treat obesity related type 2 diabetes

Endo barrier storyA new trial has been launched by Prof Julian Teare and his team, to investigate the effectiveness of a tube-like device inserted into the small intestine to treat type 2 diabetes. The study is now open for participants and you can read more about it on the Imperial news story or on the EndoBarrier website.