Tell us a little bit about yourself and your improvement journey.

After completing my medical degree in 2015 in Belfast, I moved back home to Wales and carried out my foundation and GP training in Swansea. As an academic trainee I currently split my week between Cardiff University and a GP practice in Swansea, and after completing my training in August 2021, will start working as a GP Clinical Lecturer at Cardiff University.

I spend my time facilitating, teaching, and developing interactive workshops for 300+ students per year

I first started my improvement journey after finishing Improving Quality Together (IQT) Bronze modules as a foundation doctor in 2015. This training helped me to understand the basics of quality improvement and I started to get involved with projects to improve patient safety (eg, antibiotic stewardship, clerking proformas) and I found that this also made my work easier by making elements more streamlined and standardised.

I then began to consider how to share my QI work, and working as a team, published my first paper as a co-author in February 2021 in BMJ Open Quality, highlighting the use of Kotter’s ‘eight-step model for change’ to improve the volume of discharge summaries completed within a Paediatric ward.

I also enjoy attending academic conferences and hearing about other people’s QI projects, and in June 2021 presented at the Bristol Patient Safety Conference describing an Antipsychotic quality improvement project within Primary Care. This won second prize within the ‘Improving Primary Care’ category.

I started teaching about quality improvement and patient safety in 2018 after working as a Clinical Tutor for Cardiff University, and then advanced to become an academic GP trainee at the university and Honorary Lecturer in 2019. I am now a co-module lead for their C21 curriculum “Changing Practice” module, which assists final year medical students in completing their own quality improvement projects. I spend my time facilitating, teaching, and developing interactive workshops for 300+ students per year – with some of my students progressing to win prizes at conferences and publish their own work as well.

What first attracted you to Q?

In 2019 I completed the IQT Silver course, and after a delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was told that my QI project (Direct oral anticoagulant monitoring in primary care) successfully met its assessment criteria in 2021. Keen to progress further with quality improvement, I spent time speaking to my QI mentors about their own improvement pathways, and they all signposted me to and recommended the Q community.

This seemed to be an excellent opportunity to link with likeminded individuals to share knowledge and support improvement work and I was very keen to become part of this forward-thinking network.

Continuing professional development is a vital aspect of my training, and I believe that utilising the Q community will help me with my own learning

What are you hoping to get out of Q?

After spending time on the Q community website, I have seen an abundance of resources and hope to make use of them and the Q Connectors network to learn more about local projects and sharing ideas with colleagues. I think that organising the website according to areas of interest is a fantastic idea and I cannot wait to join the webinars and meet its members.

Continuing professional development is a vital aspect of my training, and I believe that utilising the Q community will help me with my own learning and I look forward to the opportunities it is likely to bring.