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Acknowledgements

Lead Authors

Dr Sarah Quinn

Sarah is a trainee in Severn Deanery. She is the RCOG Trainees’ Representative for Workplace Behaviour and Vice Chair (for strategy) of the RCOG Trainees' Committee. She believes that we can and should all take an active role in making our work environments positive ones. Sarah is excited to see the launch of this long-awaited toolkit and the renewed attention that workplace behaviour and workplace culture are once again receiving.

Dr Ellen Knox

Ellen is a consultant Obstetrician at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s hospital. As the current RCOG Workplace Behaviours Advisor, Ellen is proud to work in conjunction with the RCOG regional Workplace Behaviours Champions to promote positive workplace behaviours. She believes we all have a role to play in this no matter how junior or senior we are. She also believes that positive workplace behaviours can influence not only our own and our colleagues’ wellbeing but the safety of those we look after at work. She is very grateful to the large amount of time and effort contributors have put into this toolkit and hopes it can have a wide reaching impact both for individuals and organisations.

Contributors

We would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to this toolkit, and also many individuals not mentioned, including those who have chosen to remain anonymous.

Gill Adgie RM

Regional Head North of England Royal College of Midwives. In 2016 I led the RCM campaign Caring for You. Part of this campaign was to support positive workplace cultures and zero tolerance to undermining behaviours in maternity services.

Dr Simi Bansal

I am an obstetrics and gynaecology trainee with a special interest in supporting doctors and improving culture. It has been great to work on the workplace behaviour toolkit and we have found some great resources to support doctors in training and other healthcare professionals.

Dr Alia Bashir (MBBS, FRCOG)

I have been working in the NHS since 2009 and am currently working as ST5 trainee in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. I have previously worked in Pakistan and the Middle East in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

I am incredibly pleased about my written contributions and audio recordings as part of this toolkit, which I believe, will help future trainees and improve their ability to work with others as part of a team.

Dr Neil Cowan

I am an ST4 trainee in the West of Scotland who has an interest in improving workplace behaviour. I can see lots of positive progress happening in the culture of obstetrics and gynaecology but there is still potential to be better.

Miss Alice Hartley

Alice is a Urology Trainee and Chair of the RCSEd #LetsRemoveIt campaign to tackle undermining and bullying in surgery. She has worked closely with other organisations within the NHS, including the RCOG, to help create resources to manage bullying, undermining and harassment in the workplace.

Dr Penelope Hurst

I am an Obstetrics and Gynaecology registrar and a member of Civility Saves Lives. I've helped link the project with the RCOG for the toolkit, to increase awareness of the many benefits of being civil in medicine.

Ms Karen Joash 

Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Training Program Director in London with a passion for wellbeing, inclusivity and equality. Contribution to the toolkit included training models to understanding cultural sensitivity and the value of diversity. 

Ms Iman Abugarga Kantbai, MD, MRCOG

Senior Obs and Gyne trainee, special interest in Gynecological surgery, Medical Education. Psychosexual Medicine Diplomat. Diversity and equitable society activist, in the NHS and society in general. Worked as Obs and Gyne consultant in Sudan and joined NHS in 2009.

Mother. Entrepreneur. Thinker.

Dr Rosinder Kaur

ST4, West Midlands Deanery. Passionate about creating a positive workplace environment.

Dr Katherine Lattey

Katherine is an ST3 trainee in the Severn deanery, about to become an Academic Clinical Fellow. Katherine has a keen interest in medical education and a passion for us all to train in a supportive environment.

Dr. Ayesha Mahmud

Dr. Mahmud is an ST6 (Obstetrics & Gynaecology) in West Midland's deanery. She is a member of the StratOG editorial board and an RCOG Equality and diversity champion. Her role in the development of the RCOG workplace toolkit has been with a particular focus on BAME/IMG and in helping to make the toolkit more inclusive.

Dr Ruth Mason

Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, University Hospital Sussex NHS Foundation Trust

I have been involved with workplace behaviour since the initiation of the champions in 2013 having worked with Dr Jo Mountfield to create the first RCOG videos aimed at tackling workplace behaviour as part of my Medical Education ATSM. I am passionate about improving workplace behaviour to make O&G an enjoyable speciality to work in. I was part of the team who created the first workplace behaviour toolkit and am delighted to have been able to contribute to the updated version which has been developed using the building blocks of the original.

Dr Claire McCormack

I am an ST7 O&G trainee and was keen to work on the toolkit as I am aware of the issues with bullying and undermining in our specialty. Focusing on departmental level issues for the toolkit has given me a better understanding of how we can try and address these issues.

Dr Emma Plunkett

Emma is a consultant anaesthetist at University Hospitals Birmingham and Birmingham Women's Hospital and her non-clinical interests are around ways we can support staff wellbeing so we can thrive at work. She is a trained mentor, leads the wellbeing group in her department and has introduced positive reporting systems (Learning from Excellence) where she works. She complements LfE with the use of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and has seen the benefits of LFE and AI in terms of staff interactions and quality improvement.

Chris Sanderson

Chris manages the RCSEd’s centre in Birmingham and the College’s external relations work. He works closely with Alice Hartley to produce the RCSEd’s anti-bullying resources and other activities aimed at improving workplace behaviours and cultures.

Chris Turner

Chris Turner is a consultant in emergency medicine and he co-founded Civility Saves Lives, a campaign that aims to raise awareness of the power of civility in healthcare.

Dr Ganga Verma

I am a subspecialty trainee in maternal fetal medicine at the University Hospitals of Leicester. I passionately promote positive work place behaviours and am a member of the Civility Saves Lives Campaign.

Sophie Wienand-Barnett

I am an ST6 trainee in the South West rotation. I am currently working as clinical workforce and professionalism fellow at the RCOG and am eager to contribute to tackling bullying and undermining in our workplace with innovative ways such as this toolkit.