CPD Online eNewsletter August 2014

News:

CPD Online redesign – CPD Online is about to undergo a makeover. With redesigned menus, mobile-friendly features, links to CPD submissions and the new Trainees Online resource plus a brand new look and logo, we hope you will find CPD Online an even more user-friendly experience.  

BAP discount – CPD Online subscribers (whether you subscribe individually or have access through your workplace) can now access the British Association of Psychopharmacology’s Online CPD resource at a heavily reduced rate of just £30 p.a. RCPsych Trainees can use the resource for free. To benefit from the discount log into CPD Online in the usual way and go to the My CPD Online section. At the bottom of the page you will see a link to the BAP system at the discounted rate.

Twitter – Figures reveal the NHS is spending only 10% of budget on mental health care. Described as "unacceptable": http://t.co/d5w1LGL2xG.

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Educational feature:

Making sense of management

By Dr Stuart Leask, CPD Online Editor

Is your organisation forward-looking? Probably. Learning the lessons of the past? Almost certainly. While simultaneously being firmly rooted in the here-and-now? I expect so. Or perhaps it is a listening organisation with a clear vision? Let me guess…

Any mental health clinician working for a large organisation is probably all too familiar with such exhortations from senior management to embrace the blindingly obvious. But, as experienced clinicians, I suspect we remain, essentially, baffled. New formulations arrive weekly, are often true merely by definition, and can be contradictory (see above). Strategies are often endorsed on the basis of an appeal to authority rather than evidence of efficacy; were we to prescribe a therapy on the same basis that we are expected to embrace the latest management philosophy, we would quite rightly be struck off. Even in mental health, where woolliness and fluidity are our meat and drink, management announcements can often seem little more than up-beat mood music.

Of course, this doesn’t mean there is no value in an organisational, management view of things. Perhaps, compared to medicine, as a scientific field of discovery management is young, still exploring its basic paradigms and just starting to gather its evidence for where approaches work, and where they don’t. If we are to engage in productive dialogue with our management colleagues, the more we understand about the philosophies that underpin their thinking, and what evidence there is in support of them, the better.

I am pleased to announce the first of our modules in this area: An introduction to leadership and management for psychiatrists. We have worked with the author to ensure it meets the same high standards as all our modules, presenting not just current ideas, but where these have come from, their strengths and their weaknesses. We hope this will improve communication and understanding in the workplace.

An introduction to leadership and management for psychiatrists

Learn how to think about leadership and management as they apply to psychiatry. Increase your understanding of yourself and your managerial colleagues with a view to facilitating communication. Dr Michael Hobkirk presents the key theories and models alongside a critical commentary informed by evidence and personal experience.

Forthcoming: September issue.