Transformative Reflection for Practicing Physicians and Surgeons is addressed to physicians and surgeons but the principles upon which it rests would be valuable for members of any profession. The Transformative Reflective Process has been designed and, over many years, tested in everyday practice with medical practitioners. Its focus is to unpack and explore the decision-making and professional judgements that doctors use frequently in everyday practice. The intention of this is to promote the development and growth of practical wisdom in order to enhance the quality of patient care.
Transformative Reflection can radically enlighten a medical professional's understanding of themselves, their detailed thinking, and the nuances of their practice. The process sharpens a doctor's acumen (their ability to make good judgements and take quick decisions) and enables them to articulate for themselves and develop further, the deepest elements of what characterises their practice. In this sense therefore, it offers truly worthwhile education. It also provides a means of sharing the complexity and special nature of medical practice with those both inside and outside medicine, who need to understand it better. It has the potential, we believe, when shared, to benefit society's understanding of what is involved inside medical practice and thus clarify what it is reasonable to expect from The NHS's human servants.
Linda de Cossart continues to actively promote her credo that we influence the quality of clinical practice by who we are, how we respond to our responsibilities as clinical practitioners and the efforts we make as clinical teachers in Postgraduate Medical Education. She was a consultant vascular surgeon at Chester for twenty-two years and Associate Postgraduate Dean in Merseyside. As co-director of Ed4medprac Ltd she has published widely and taught nationally and internationally with Della. She is a visiting professor at the university of Chester and is a former vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and was awarded a CBE in the Queen's birthday honours in 2010 for services to medicine and healthcare.
Della Fish's early career as a teacher educator, her wide knowledge of English literature and her observation of teaching hundreds of consultants in the clinical setting underpins her unique career as a postgraduate medical educator. Della has worked with almost every healthcare profession as a teacher and an external examiner to raise standards in curriculum design and development and in the activities of teaching, learning and assessment for postgraduates in the clinical setting. Her seminal book, Refocusing Postgraduate Medical Education: from the technical to the moral mode of practice, was published in 2012. She has taught at Masters level in five universities and in 2015 she designed and led the development of the five new core curriculum booklets for doctors as supervisors that make up the series Medical Supervision Matters, being both the lead writer in the four main booklets, and editing the series along with Linda de Cossart and Tim Wright. Della Fish is a visiting professor at the University of Chester and from 2008, until its recent closure was an Adjunct Professor in the Education for Practice Institute at Charles Sturt, Sydney Australia.
Deborah Bowman is Deputy Principal (Institutional Affairs) and Professor of Bioethics, Clinical Ethics and Medical Law at St George's. In her role as Deputy Principal, Deborah leads on cross-institutional matters, including Quality and Partnerships, Public and Civic Engagement, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Staff Careers, Development and Wellbeing and Athena SWAN.
