Professor Helen O’Sullivan: Why emotions are important in the professional practice of medicine

Professor of Medical Education

We trust doctors to care for us at some of the most difficult times in our lives; when we are in pain and frightened; when we are receiving bad news and when someone we love is dying. We expect them to be compassionate and empathetic but we don’t want emotion to cloud their judgement when making challenging clinical decisions about diagnosis or treatment. We want them to be able to communicate effectively with us and other members of the healthcare team. We want them to be trustworthy, behave responsibly and put our interests above their own. All of this while working in a system where there are competing demands for resources, where patients are better informed about healthcare and medicine and expect more and where the hierarchy places you as “junior” until your mid-thirties! In a nutshell – we want them to be “professional”.

In this talk, I will explore how the concept of “medical professionalism” developed from the scandals of the late 90s and how emotional intelligence became a key component of that work. I will examine the research evidence that emotional intelligence makes for a good doctor and look at how this work had had an impact on medical education and leadership training. I will finish by discussing how this work is developing to better understand models of emotional competence in general.

BIOGRAPHY

Helen O'Sullivan Professor Helen O’Sullivan became Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education on 1st January 2018. She was previously Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for Online Learning at University of Liverpool, where she had responsibility for all aspects of online and technology enhanced learning.

Helen graduated in molecular biology at the University of Liverpool before taking a PhD in bacterial genetics. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Liverpool, she moved to a lectureship in Biological Sciences at what is now Liverpool Hope University. She became interested in the psychology of learning and undertook a range of leadership roles including Dean of Sciences and Social Sciences.

Helen moved to University of Liverpool in 2006 to lead the Hefce funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. The work of the Centre helped to shape how medical professionalism is taught across medical schools in the UK and internationally and during this time, Helen set up the UK Council for Teachers of Professionalism. Her research focuses on the role of emotional intelligence in developing professionalism and leadership in doctors and she was promoted to a personal chair in Medical Education in 2013.

FREE 


Event date
Event Time
6:15PM
Location
Westminster Theatre, Chancellor's Building
Organiser
Events
Contact email
events@keele.ac.uk
Contact telephone
01782 734036

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