Whilst cliché, I can’t think to describe working in the Memory Unit of the Santa Creu and Sant Pau Hospital Barcelona as anything other than a truly transformative experience. Immersion into another healthcare system in a language I am far from fluent in taught me so much in only six weeks.
Something I thought about a lot during my time in Barcelona was the leadership training I received from the amazing Daniela and Adair in the first year of the scholarship. The 3Cs Leadership Model proved comprehensive, and my development in all three aspects (Change Maker Values, Character, and Capacities) makes it clear to me quite how comprehensively I have changed. I find this most clear in my interactions with people throughout the experience, a couple of which I’ll outline below.
Whenever I think about the hospital, sitting in on patient appointments is the first thing that comes to mind. Patients and their loved ones treated me with a respect I felt undeserving of. They seemed to think I was capable of more than I felt I was, but this only made me strive to reach the bar they set for me. I can only hope I did. Through these appointments, I got a much better idea of the Spanish healthcare system and also got special insight into the concerns of the patient, as well as the person who accompanied them – usually their spouse. Almost more importantly though, I saw the joy that still permeated their lives. All too often, long-term illness is characterised by wider society as a defining deep pain, but from what I saw, it is still laughs and smiles that hold these people’s life together.
These appointments catalysed my capacities development, pushing me to embrace challenge in communicating effectively using my limited Spanish, and to envision what better result disclosure could look like whilst taking careful note of what it looks like now. Meeting patients inspired me to dream big for them, and I left each appointment with more questions for my supervisor than when I went in.
As well as meetings with patients, I attended whole staff meetings within the Memory Unit, as well as with visiting scientists and researchers. I even got to meet the President of Lewy Body España, José Gigante, and from him I learnt so much. Whilst these meetings acted as a great place to use my skills from my Oxford Character training, I found my 1 on 1 meetings with my wonderful supervisor, Dr Carla Abdelnour Ruiz, to be the most memorable. In these meetings, I got to ask no end of questions about what exactly our aims are, and whether or not we should consider x, y, or z factor. Has anyone tried doing it this way, or that way, or maybe even this other way? My questions were always met with a smile and a nod, followed by an answer, and sometimes I struck gold and was told that actually this is something that’s not been done before, and maybe we should consider it. I look forward to asking patients their opinion on these, which might make it possible to implement into their care. Through my questions, I really hope to ignite positive change (see more about my work in my project report!).
It’s hard to isolate different parts of the 3Cs into separate areas of the project, as they really were a foundational current in guiding the way I worked. A massive thank you to everyone at Laidlaw who was involved in this training. Separate from that, thank you once more to every patient I had the privilege of meeting and to the entire staff at the Memory Unit – particularly to Carla, my supervisor.