It's tempting to think that none of us need this, but we do.
It's tempting to think that we’re sorted and that we can carry on life without the requirement to reset or to appreciate how lucky we are, or what's possible for us to achieve.
But we can't do that. We need reminding.
In the same way that we need to retrain regularly in CPR when we work in healthcare (because we forget to). We need to re-establish our boundaries and perspective and to set our perspective. To understand how privileged, we are and how lucky we are, but also to understand how much further we have to go.
I think it was back in 2017 (but to be honest, I can't remember now) when we decided to host our first learning from failure conference.
I know what the driver was, it was Matthew Syed's black box thinking. https://amzn.eu/d/26LApNQ
And having read that and understood how it was possible to get better by honestly re-examining things that were bad, that we realised that we wanted to do something to share.
Looking back almost 10 years to that now, it was probably quite innovative at the time.
And it was also one of those things that we started (and there have been many, to be honest), that we thought would probably go international to millions of people, and it didn't. But it was ground-breaking and extraordinary, nonetheless.
I've never met anybody who hasn't been to one of our learning from failure conferences who says it wasn't extraordinary.
That doesn't mean that everybody always comes back because life gets in the way and giving up a Saturday to listen to people talk about things which might make you better from a perspective point of view seems like quite a luxury. But I can tell you that it is extraordinary, and it is worth it, and a lot of the time it is life changing.
As an example of the things that happened in these conferences, these are some of the things as follows.
Number One, one of my best friends and colleagues, Craig Wales, maxillofacial surgeon from Glasgow, discussed a case we'd have removed an eye for someone to cure them of cancer, only to find out when the pathology returned that there was no cancer, it was a showstopper.
For me, one of the most extraordinary moments in the whole of the conferences and the point was to teach us about compartmentalization in our work.
Number Two, John Gibson spoke last year about the death of his son. There was not a person in that room that wasn't entirely and utterly moved and changed.
Number Three, I had the opportunity to talk with one of my patients who's had an extremely serious complication, and to ask him to explain to the audience why he never sent me to the General Dental council or sued me or even complained as we fixed him, it was a patient perspective the like of which I've never seen before in public.
Number Four, the founder of Confidential talked to us about what it's like when one of your patients dies when you're trying to help, and you're charged with manslaughter.
As always with these things, this might not seem like happy reading or happy listening or happy watching, but it isn't supposed to be like that.
This year Martine Wright will talk at the conference as the keynote speaker. She lost both her legs in the 7/7 bombings in London on the tube, her story is devastating and remarkable.
She classifies herself as lucky after what happened to her. She went on to become a Paralympian at sitting volleyball, representing our country over 40 times. She has an MBE and inspires millions around the world about how to be better, how to embrace the bad things that happen and use them as power.
In the same vein, Louis Dunne will speak, Louis is well known to many people who know me after what he has been through, through the loss of his father and traumatic circumstances. It will be the first time Louie has spoken about this out loud to a group of people that I've ever seen. I'm not actually sure I will, I will be able to even be in the room. But I know Louis's story inside out, and I know that what he will tell you will empower you and make you better and give you perspective and make you want to go further.
It's the 22nd of November, it's a Saturday.
It might seem like a lot to give away.
But if you don't come, you might never remember that Saturday or even what decade it happened in, if you do come, you will never forget it.
Blog Post Number - 4239
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