When a parent, grandparent, caregiver or any significant adult in a child's life is going through a stressful time, children can sense it. Children often try to rationalise the stress they feel from others and draw their own conclusions about what is happening to those around them.

As surgeons, we often overlook the importance of suggesting to the patient that they should discuss the impact of a diagnosis or treatment plan with

Our guests share insights and advice on how to have these conversations with children following a diagnosis and provide prompts that

For healthcare professionals: https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/files/research/guide-for-hcps.pdf

 For families: https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/files/research/guide-for-families.pdf

Don't miss out on this crucial conversation; tune in now to hear from experts in this field.

February is LGBTQ+ History Month, and for us that means returning to a topic that we’ve touched on a few times over the life of this podcast, and that is issues facing queer surgeons in the workplace. Up to this point, we’ve focused exclusively on the experiences of LGBTQ+ surgeons in the UK, but for this episode, we are featuring members of our own Pride in Surgery Forum (aka Prism) in conversation with members of Pride in Medicine, a multispecialty group of doctors in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

Through this podcast, we wanted to highlight common issues facing LGBTQ+ clinicians in another country, explain different approaches being taken to gaining LGBTQ+ inclusion and visibility, and discuss how perceptions of the impacts of homophobia and transphobia differ between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ people.

This episode features Pride in Surgery Forum (PRiSM) chair and consultant vascular surgeon Ginny Bowbrick with PRiSM vice-chair and orthopaedic registrar Karen Chui, in conversation with members of Pride in Medicine: general surgeon Richard Turner and general surgery follow Matt Marino. 

As a note on terminology, this podcast uses the term "Mardi Gras," which, for listners outside Australia refers to the Pride Festival in Sydney.

This episode centres around the perspectives of Muslim women in surgery, and in particular the challenges faced by hijab-wearing Muslim women in both theatre environments and in their trusts. Featuring a panel led by core surgical trainee Azra Khatun, along with colorectal consultant and RCS Council Member Nuha Yassin, vascular registrar Nina Al-Saadi and paediatric registrar Farah Roslan, this podcast aims to show a range of experiences that hijab-wearing women face in the surgical world, while offering guidance and encouragement to those coming through medical school and aspiring to a career in surgery.

As Azra says in a recent RCS Bulletin article on her work on the Surgical Scarf initiative:

'Research demonstrates that the lack of consideration for religious dress codes in the operating theatre has compromised access to training and surgical career pathways for a growing number of Muslim women surgeons and medical students. Many women were left feeling anxious and bullied, subsequently opting for alternative specialties. During a recent meeting of the British Islamic Medical Association’s dress code group, it became clear that each of us from different UK hospitals shared similar experiences of not being able to wear our headscarf in theatre. Many of us were being told to leave the theatre and to wear a theatre cap while some reported that surgery could not be a career option because of this.'

For the recent Bulletin articles by the featured panellists, please see the links below.

The Surgical Scarf Project by Azra Khatun

Cut from the Same Cloth? by Nina Al-Saadi et al

Hello listener, if you’ve looked at the time stamp for this episode you’ll see it’s only a minute or two long. That’s because it’s not a real episode, it’s just a quick little message to let you know that the podcast is taking a break for the rest of the summer, and we will return in mid-September. In the meantime, feel free to have a dive into the back catalogue to catch up on anything you might have missed. As always, our inbox is still open, so if you want to get in touch for any reason, whether to send us feedback or propose a topic for an episode, you can reach us at [email protected], or you can find us through the College’s social media channels. We hope you have a fantastic summer, and you’ll be hearing from us again in a few weeks. Thanks for listening!

Though numerous studies have been undertaken showing the efficacy of drug therapies for breast cancer prevention, many primary and secondary care professionals remain unaware that these preventative treatments exist. In fact, drugs such as Tamoxifen are both extremely safe and provide protection long after the suggested five-year course of treatment. 

Produced in collaboration with Health Innovation Manchester and featuring a panel consisting of breast surgeon Ms Rosie Stanton; Macmillan GP Clinical Cancer Lead Dr Nicola Weaver; Dr Sacha Howel, medical oncologist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester; and Dr Gareth Evans, professor of medical genetics and cancer epidemiology at the University of Manchester, this podcast aims to give surgeons and other health care professionals an overview of the treatments available, how they work and which groups of patients would most benefit from them.

To send us feedback or propose a topic for a future podcast, please get in touch at [email protected]

Visit Health Innovation Manchester for more information on their suite of breast cancer prevention learning resources.

In part one of our ongoing investigation of Ethical Leadership with Aya Musbahi and Salman Ahmed, listeners were invited to consider the concept of “ethical leadership,” as well as how this can be applied to surgeons in the modern health service. This second episode discusses the issue of efficiency in the context of healthcare, and how questions of efficiency and service delivery often become issues of ethics and leadership. The episode is structured in two segments, with the first featuring Aya and Salman discussing the realtionship between equity and efficiency in the context of issues such as employee performance; while in the second segment, Aya and Salman invite Kevin Magee, Chief Executive of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust for a conversation on how health organisations can become ethically led, given current pressures such as resource scarcity and increasing wait times for operations. 

Opinions expressed in this podcast are the speakers' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Despite advances in the field of sexual health medicine in recent years, there remain persistent myths and misconceptions, both amongst the general public, as well as between medical professionals who do not specialise in this area. Indeed, the stigmas surrounding conditions such as HIV and syphilis may have repercussions for patient care if health practitioners are unable to properly administer these patients as a result of poor information. This series of discussions, featuring colorectal surgeon and Women in Surgery Chair, Tamzin Cuming, and sexual health physician Diarmuid Nugent, aims to provide surgeons with some basic information on the subject so that they may confidently treat patients in their surgical clinics when these conditions and issues may be relevant. 

The first episode in this series will discuss recent advances in HIV medicine, such as PrEP and U=U, and how these developments have changed the way healthcare professionals treat patients living with HIV. Listeners are encouraged to describe how these concepts may impact their own clinical practice, recognise when it may be appropriate to test for HIV in the surgical clinic and discuss the evolving language in this area, noting why some terms may contribute to stigma.

The authority gap between men and other genders in surgery will perhaps take years to equilibrate, but is this gap getting wider with more women of colour entering surgical specialities? Is it natural for men to automatically assign women in surgery to the roles of a scrub nurse, a translator, a scribe, or a receptionist? The podcast features the hurdles that women of colour experience in the workplace and how they reclaim their roles as surgeons.

Over the last three years Chris Lewis and James Tomlinson have developed a new surgical boot camp for ST3 trauma and orthopaedic trainees at their trust in Yorkshire, focusing on leadership, professionalism, and the complexities of the registrar role, with an aim towards getting the most from the surgical team around them in the pursuit of outstanding patient care. The sessions have been delivered by trainees who have undertaken formal leadership fellowships, developing the skills of both those attending the bootcamp as well as those delivering it. 

Today, Chris and James are joined by Vivek Balachandar and Erin Demoulin to discuss the evolution of the bootcamp and the lessons learned from its implementation.

As always, opinions expressed on this podcast are the speakers' own and do not necessarily reflect the official views of RCS England.

This is a re-release of the first episode of our four-part series on LGBTQ+ people in surgery. We're bringing this episode to the top of the list again, because we are hosting a conference event for LGBTQ+ surgeons on the 25th of March, both in person at the RCS England building in London, as well as online. It is an all-day event, with plenty of speakers and opportunities for networking. For more information on the event, including how to buy tickets, can be found here.