Dr Toby Hillman Chair of BAMMbino, SpR Respiratory Medicine, North East Thames
I am currently a Speciality Trainee on the North East Thames rotation in Respiratory Medicine, in full time clinical work.
I have been interested in leadership and management for many years, and have taken part in various national and local projects. I helped to expand a National exchange programme for medical students as part of the Medsin network, and was heavily involved in student affairs at university, being both President of a Hall of Residence, and later representing medical students on the Nottingham University Student Union Council.
Since becoming a doctor I have continued to work in leadership roles, as Mess President in two hospitals, and have represented Junior Doctors both locally and nationally. I have helped to develop new patterns of work for junior doctors on the acute take, and implement a communication tool for ward-based healthcare professionals to reduce unnecessary waits for inpatients. I am involved in reforming handover procedures at my current hospital, and will continue to take an active role in improving patient care wherever I am working.
Bammbino came into being just over two years ago, and I am proud to have been one of the founding members. We have shown that with enthusiasm, energy and vision, Junior Doctors can be a force for change, and are perfectly placed to bridge the “divide” between managers and clinicians. As the future of clinical leadership in the UK, juniors must take an interest in medical management, both in theory and in practice, and I believe BAMMbino offers the ideal forum in which to gain meaningful education and experience.
Dr
Yasmin Ahmed-Little Vice Chair of BAMMbino, Specialty Registrar, Public Health, NHS Northwest
I have been working in
leadership/managerial roles around junior doctors’ hours/medical workforce
planning/ improving working lives etc in the North West for the last 7 years.
Alongside this I completed a Masters in Health Service Management, F2 training
and had 2 children!
I’m passionate about
supporting junior doctors develop management and leadership skills and have
many years experience of recruiting and leading teams of junior doctor Medical
Advisers to NW Deanery/NHS Northwest. This experience I hope has given me
unique understanding of the specific needs of fellow juniors’, whether they
take these managerial skills back to medicine or move further towards more
permanent careers in NHS management. I’ve been fighting for this cause for
years and am pleased to see a national interest now developing rapidly in this
area. Last year I was awarded a Leadership Fellowship at the Health Foundation
and earlier this year I was appointed as a Fellow to the NHS National
Leadership Council. In partnership
with North Western Deanery I have also now established and chair the BAMMbino
NW Academy which includes a regular NW Night School series.
I am currently a Specialty Registrar in Public Health working in NHS North
West, with a keen interest in health promotion and delivery of healthcare
services.
I am really keen to support fellow junior doctors undertake leadership and
management roles within the NHS and am very excited to have the opportunity to
do this through my role this year as Vice Chair on the BAMMbino Board.
Dr Emma Stanton Chair Emeritus, BAMMbino, Clinical Adviser to the Chief Medical Officer
Emma greatly enjoyed her year as Chair of BAMMbino and, as of June 2009, remains on the Board of BAMMbino as Chair Emeritus.
For BAMMbino, Emma was involved in organising the Medical Leadership Fellowship Event in October 2009, the next Agents for Change conference in June 2010 and managing BAMMbino’s finances. Emma is currently on secondment to the Department of Health as part of the Chief Medical Officer’s Clinical Advisory Scheme and returns to clinical work full-time, as a Psychiatry SpR with South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, in February 2010.
In April 2009, Emma was appointed as an Emerging Leader to the National Leadership Council (NLC). The NLC was established in response to the Next Stage Review “High Quality Care for All”, June 2008. Through her work on the NLC, Emma is able to raise the profile of Junior Doctors and their leadership development needs.
Emma has just completed an Executive MBA at Imperial College, London and is on the NHS London “Prepare to Lead” Mentoring Scheme. As an SpR, Emma set up a Special Interest in Management Group for Junior Doctors with her Medical Director and would encourage other BAMMbino members to do the same in their Trusts. Emma’s interest in leadership stems from research carried out whilst sailing round the world in 2005-2006.
Dr Mark Simmonds Founding Chair, BAMMbino, SpR Acute and Intensive Medical
When we set out on the construction of BAMMbino, we believed that there was an untapped cohort of junior doctors who had an interest in developing their skills in clinical leadership but were stuck in a system that failed to recognise or encourage this enthusiasm. The past two years have been a fantastic experience and it is heartening to see BAMMbino grow into a proactive and flourishing organisation.
My interest in healthcare leadership and management has been a progression from my work with the Nottingham Students' Union where I pioneered medics' involvement in the University Charity Appeal (Karnival) in 1997 raising £12500 in their first year. I then went on to work as Treasurer for the appeal, helping to boost income by 30% in 1998, and in my subsequent role on the Union Executive in 1999 paved the way for Karnival to now raise over £500,000 each year. This experience got me out of the confines of medical school and gave me a broader view of the world, which I have subsequently translated back into my life as a junior doctor.
Whilst progressing through the early years of my career, I have developed my interest in medical management and leadership through a number of local and national projects, focussing on clinical engagement and leadership training. As Mess President at the Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham in 2003/4, I opened communication channels with the Trust executive and negotiated a concerted effort to improve the relationship between the Trust and its junior doctors. During my 2 years in the role, I oversaw a £25,000 refurbishment of Mess facilities and, working with the Trust directors, developed and implemented the novel post of Junior Doctor's Liaison Coordinator. This role acted as a hub for communication between the Trust and its 450 junior doctors and facilitated active involvement of doctors in Trust development and, in 2006, was praised by NHS Employers as a beacon of good practice.
Nationally, I worked with the Royal College of Physicians on guidelines for night shift work and EWTD compliance and was a member of their Acute Medicine Taskforce. I have been part of the NHS Employers Doctor's Forum and have worked with the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement on their ‘Enhancing Engagement in Medical Leadership' project as a member of their postgraduate reference group.
Clinically, I am a fourth year SpR with NTNs in Acute Medicine and Critical Care Medicine.
Dr Jonathan Behar
CT2 Core Medical Training, London Deanery
I was one of the founding board members of BAMMbino. I became interested as an FY1 where I noticed first hand, numerous problems within my area of work which I wanted to help change but felt there was a lack of training and desire from those senior than me, to involve juniors in the process of reform and improvement.
After joining the board, I helped raise the profile of BAMMbino amongst junior colleagues and the last few years has seen cumulative increases in interest and membership.
My main focus has been patient safety where I helped in the organisation of the 'Junior Doctors: Agents for Change' conference, jointly run by BAMMbino, the National Patient Safety Agency, the Department of Health Medical Directorate and the British Medical Journal. Subsequent to the conference which was a huge success, we have set up a Patient Safety Working Group which I am co-chairing with another board member.
We are in the process of setting up numerous safety initiatives over the next six months and further details of these will be posted on this website when available.
Dr Laura Dobson
ST1 Core Medical Training
Qualifying from Leeds University in 2005 I have worked as a junior doctor in the Yorkshire region for the last 4 years and am about to embark on Cardiology Registrar training. My interest in management started as a medical student, being president of the medical society, founding a widening access scheme for prospective medical students and contributing to the Department of Health ‘Doctors Forum’.
Since qualification the importance of management skills as a junior doctor has been very apparent, always being one not to accept the ‘norm’ and question how we a juniors can do something better and with a higher quality. I have been involved locally in projects such as auditing good recordkeeping, looking at the effectiveness of rotas, implementing safe handover and running ‘fix-it fortnights’, empowering other junior doctors to get involved in small management projects.
Having been a board member of BAMMbino for 2 years now I have been privileged enough to see the organisation grow from its inception right through to where we are today. I have been involved in organising night schools and lead on patient safety.
Over the next year we hope to build on the patient safety stream by providing more events in association with the NPSA and Department of Health aimed at engaging and empowering junior doctors to become involved in the patient safety agenda.
Katie de Wit
Medical Student
I am a second year Graduate Entry medical student at Barts and the London, having decided on a medical career after two years as a civil servant at the Department of Health. At the DH I worked in a variety of policy roles, including commissioning, HCAIs and workforce, before working in Lord Darzi’s Private Office during the Next Stage Review, with responsibility for Workforce and Leadership.
Since leaving to start my medical career I have remained involved by performing part-time work for both Lord Darzi and currently for the Dean for Education at Barts, where I have been helping to establish the new Health Innovation and Education Cluster for North East London.
These experiences have created a strong belief that doctors must lead NHS service provision and improvement. To do so requires that leadership and management skills be incorporated throughout undergraduate and postgraduate education.
I therefore feel very excited and privileged to be part of the BAMMbino team as we launch a new BAMMbino service for medical students. We will be inspiring and helping undergraduates across the country to develop their management and leadership skills, knowledge and behaviours at the very outset of their medical careers. Here’s to an exciting year ahead!
Dr Maria Ahmed
FY2, North West
Not one to conform to the conveyor-belt approach to clinical training, Maria has made every effort to break the ‘rules’. She was awarded a Health Foundation Student Fellowship to undertake an MPH as an undergraduate and successfully held down two part-time jobs and led a research project with her Finals looming. In 2008/09 she stepped out of Academic Foundation Training to spend a year at Bupa as part of the Chief Medical Officer’s Clinical Advisors scheme, working on commissioning projects across the public-private and primary-secondary care interface and gaining invaluable insight into healthcare policy, leadership and management.
Maria has a passion for innovating across Medical Education and Public Health. In 2006/07 she secured funding from the Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning to lead a team of eight students to develop a learning module in cross-cultural communication. This work was presented both nationally and internationally and was short-listed for the PriceWaterhouseCoopers Student Team-working Awards. Her Masters dissertation involved an extended service audit to inform the implementation of preventive services for alcohol misuse within a busy inner-city Emergency Department. More recently, she has worked with World Health Organization Patient Safety to develop a free online tool to promote and facilitate patient safety research globally.
Maria wishes to channel her (often) anarchic energy into encouraging junior doctors to harness any resentment with ‘the system’ into making things better for themselves, their peers and their patients. With this in mind, Maria’s first Bammbino project will involve leading the development of toolkits to help junior doctors implement service improvement within the workplace. As self-proclaimed champion of the KISS philosophy, Maria will continue to work with the team to ensure that Bammbino events and materials are engaging, accessible and applicable to junior doctors, helping them to develop the requisite skills and experience to become effective clinical leaders.
Dr Omar Najim
Fellow, NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement
Currently working as a fellow with the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement. In that, he is working on developing a nationally available tool that will improve patient safety and quality of care through engaging frontline staff, mainly junior doctors. In addition, I am leading the working group on developing the national postgraduate safety and quality curriculum in association with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. Recently I was the associate director for the 2008 HSJ award winner and Secretary of State Award for Excellence in Healthcare Management shortlistee, EWTD and Medical Workforce Development Team in NHS North West.
I did my basic surgical training in the North East of England. I am a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and currently in my final year MSc in Surgical Technology at Imperial.
While doing my basic surgical training in the North East of England, I was a member of national Junior Doctors Committee of the BMA and in 2007, I became an Exec member of its sub-committee. I published and presented extensively in issues related to junior doctors.
I have a strong belief in BAMMbino’s value and potential in influencing the further engagement of doctors, especially juniors, in the management of the NHS. Most of us has worked in places where we wished we can do something or participate more in the management of resources and colleagues, well now is the chance through BAMMbino and BAMM. The time is right for us to raise the profile and to push for resources to be made available for further juniors’ involvement. A doctor who is a chief executive of a trust, or even the NHS, should not be something extraordinaire.
I regularly play basketball, ride horses, swim and practice fencing. I am also an avid reader of Latin American literature and Modern Arabic history and politics.
Dr Nikita Kanani GP ST2 Trainee, London Deanery
In the current climate it is vital to ensure clinicians are involved in developing and managing services. Since qualifying from GKT I have sat on numerous committees from Mess President to Junior Doctor’s Committee, and have been able to improve Mess facilities, change rotas, create handover procedures and retain on call rooms by working with the Trust to find suitable solutions.
Keen to become more involved in service redesign I created a role working as Service Modernisation Lead for my Trust, managing a number of key projects designed to improve patient flow and experience. These ranged from redesigning patient flow and departments to creating in-patient and out-patient teams to help avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital.
I undertook a PGCert in Managing in Health and Social Care in order to improve my knowledge of management theories and concepts, and chronicled my experiences in BAMM’s Clinical Leader Voice. I became a PRINCE2 Practitioner to develop my project management skills, and being a Lean trainer has helped me manage projects efficiently.
Since beginning my family I have started a flexible GPVTS (ST1) in London and hope to represent both GP and flexible trainees who want to develop interests in management and leadership.
I am excited and honoured to be part of the BAMMbino board, and in particular to be the Primary Care Group lead. BAMMbino’s Primary Care Focus Group aims to provide support in the way of events, resources and networking opportunities for speciality trainees and qualified GPs keen on learning more about working, managing and leading within the Primary Care setting. This is a really important opportunity to shape the future of medical management and clinical leadership in Primary Care, and one which I look forward to championing.
