2018 has been an exciting year; the NHS has officially recognised the potential benefit of using the Arts for Health and Wellbeing and the first GP Training Leadership Fellow in the Creative Arts for Health and Wellbeing has been granted funding.
On a personal front it has been very satisfying to launch my website and share creative arts resources to help doctors learn, teach and maintain the art of medicine. There is so much more to upload and share.
In 2018 the themes for our Creative Arts seminars; part of HEE Y&H Spring and Autumn School, have been on ‘loss’ and ‘home’.
We have also facilitated a number of seminars about resilience. I think a more appropriate title for these seminars is ‘surviving and thriving at work’. Participants told us they benefited most from talking about why they work, this resulted in them being reminded about the positive aspects of work. They said refreshing their knowledge about ‘the stress pathway’ gave them a better understanding about why strategies such as mindfulness and meditation can help to combat stress. We hope to run these seminars again as part of Spring and Autumn School 2019. If you are interested in having help running a seminar for your GP Training scheme, department or organisation please make contact.