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Advocacy

Colin Campbell
by Colin Campbell on 21/04/17 18:00

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On Wednesday we hosted Professor John Gibson at The Campbell Academy in Nottingham, who is Professor of Medicine in relation to dentistry at the University of Glasgow.

I’d written about this Master Class / study day previously and was surprised at the lack of interest in a subject which seems so important to all of us in our day-to-day working lives but I committed to running the day anyway because I wanted the educational experience for myself.

This day was quite something special as I’d hope and knew it would be and it has spawned ideas to write here for many subjects, but the first is on the subject of advocacy for patients.

The concept of advocacy was not requested of John and wasn’t in the programme for the day. It was an extraordinary programme of significant areas of medicine if relation to dentistry which were broken down and explained and we were directed exactly how to act in circumstances which was extremely comforting. It was really reassuring to know how to do the right thing. The concept of advocacy came up again and again in the small group through the day and it’s clearly one of John’s passions; I know, from my long history of mentorship and friendship with John, that that is the case.
John has a very clear view of the fact that ‘it’s not about the money’ and that dentistry as a discipline in healthcare is first and foremost about advocacy. 

Many of the issues that arise and lead to complaints or regulatory experiences for dentists (and medics I guess) are as a result of a breakdown in the process of advocating for patients where patients are either ignored or forgotten about because we, as ‘professionals’, are busy doing other things.

On the day following the day with John I had a conversation with Andy (Legg) in the practice and again we discussed how amazing it was that more people weren’t interested in a day of extraordinary education, which has enhanced and improved my practice perhaps more than any day of CPD I have undertaken for a very long time. Andy explained to me that people won’t attend days like this because they’re not ‘sexy’ but I think for ‘sexy’ read ‘profitable’.
People can’t see how spending £350 on a day with a Professor of Medicine in relation to Dentistry can act as a direct profit centre for your business, and of course it’s difficult to prove or to see why that might be the case, but in fact some of the discussions that were held that day will relate straight back through to the business and the way we look after patients. Even new and novel ideas of services we could provide for our patients which would be of huge benefit to them (blood tests) were discussed.

So as John so wonderfully put it during the day “If you have to stay at work until 10pm at night to sort out a problem with a patient that you have committed to treat and not be paid one brass farthing, that is your job.” (Slightly paraphrased)

We can’t work for free because society will not allow us to work for free because we can’t buy our shopping at Tesco with good will alone, but generally speaking and across the board healthcare professionals are paid enough.

The pursuit for ever greater incomes to allow ever greater collections of things and stuff has lead to an erosion in advocacy of patients, which has led to an erosion in the status of our profession, which has led to an erosion of us.

 

Blog Post Number - 1258

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Colin Campbell
Written by Colin Campbell
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