Colin Melville urges new Derry doctors to heed example of John Hume ahead of retirement as GMC Medical Director - video Dailymotion

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Colin Melville urges new Derry doctors to heed example of John Hume ahead of retirement as GMC Medical Director

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00:00Is there graduates, or should I say, colleagues? Because they are. And your friends and family.

00:14And this is a bit odd, because I'm facing this way, but I want to speak to these good people.

00:19First of all, thank you, Louise. I met Louise in 2017, in the December, and she came and said to me when I was working at the DMC,

00:29do you know of any opportunity that is coming up? And I said, no, I don't.

00:35Thank goodness there was one. And what an amazing story to follow through.

00:41For those of you who aren't familiar with the GMC, we are the regulator of doctors,

00:45and we were the ones who approved the course and the outcomes that you have met in order that they can graduate

00:52and then be added to the medical register licensed to practice medicine in the UK.

00:58Amazing.

01:07So, first of all, congratulations on your degree, and I'm sure you are as relieved as I was in 1983.

01:13Yeah, I know that's last century.

01:15When I graduated from Sheffield University, and apart from the fact that I'd torn the fur off the hood,

01:21I am wearing my graduation gown so that I can celebrate with you.

01:30For those of you who don't know, this illustrious group joined over 380,000 doctors who are registered in the UK.

01:40So, Louise referred to John Hume and his three very prestigious and absolutely rightly earned awards,

01:50the Nobel Peace Prize, the Gandhi Peace Prize, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Award.

01:55And so I wanted to pick up a little bit on that theme, because it seems poignant and inappropriate to this particular gallery.

02:04And I also noticed, Kyle, where's Kyle?

02:10I was listening.

02:11You said that we're here to set the tone.

02:17Sorry, that's just got me.

02:19That is so right, and I wanted to pick up on that.

02:22So I've got four key words.

02:24If you remember the rest, that's fine, but here are the four key words.

02:27The first is honour.

02:30So doctors remain, amazingly, at the top of the list of the most trusted people by the public.

02:38But why?

02:40And that is because they're community-orientated, transparent, and service-driven.

02:46It's great to have a career, but it's great to serve a community.

02:59John Hume said this.

03:00by the public. And I would just say to you, preserve that sense of being community-orientated,

03:06transparent, service-driven. It's great to have a career, but it's great to serve a community.

03:14John Hume said this, difference is the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of

03:20birth and should never be a source of hatred or conflict. But unfortunately, although trust

03:26in doctors remains high, it's falling. And amongst black and Asian patients, they feel

03:32that they're treated differently because of their ethnicity. That accident of birth, we

03:38need to do more to address that. So that's honour. The second one is honesty. And it's

03:43interesting that actually within the piece that we've read out, and in the start of good

03:47medical practice, which is our professional standards, it says this, good medical professionals

03:52uphold high personal and professional standards of conduct. They are honest and trustworthy,

03:58act with integrity, maintain professional boundaries, and do not let their personal interests

04:04affect their professional judgments or actions. In all you do, be honest. Being honest never

04:11gets you into trouble. It's people who try and cover up who end up in difficulty. Please

04:17don't forget that. The third one is humility. And I think from this, John Hume's comment

04:23is really helpful. He said, I never thought in terms of being a leader. I thought very simply

04:31in terms of helping people. And I have to say, for me, through my career, I never saw myself

04:38as a leader. I never intended to be the medical director at the GMC. It was almost something

04:43that happened, you might say, by chance. But I have always held, and I've said from platforms,

04:48and it has been tweeted in the past, I am just a bloke doing a job. And actually, if we

04:54see ourselves in that, we are doing something which we're trained to do, but we cannot do

04:58it without others. Let's remain humble. And then the fourth word is humour. Above all, you

05:09need to look after yourself. And the reason we know that is because humour reduces stress

05:17and anxiety. Sorry, a little bit of medicine here. It releases endorphins and it aids emotional

05:22resilience. And you'll know from our GMC reports that we have seen a significant risk of burnout

05:29amongst doctors. And medicine can be stressful. But if we look after ourselves, and consequently

05:35then look out for each other, we can thrive more easily. So finally, Louise made a comment

05:43that this is indeed my very last day working for the GMC. Tomorrow I am a retiree. So it

05:51is, it was an enormous pleasure to find that your graduation ceremony happened to coincide with

05:56this day. That was just huge. And it has been a huge privilege for me to share my final day

06:02with you, as I said, wearing my own NBCHB graduation gown. You have careers ahead of you. And they

06:10will have ups and downs. Choices that need to be made. And maybe sometimes opportunities

06:15that seemingly were denied. And I've had plenty of those. But if I had got some of the jobs

06:22that I thought I should have got, I would not have ended up doing what I'm doing now.

06:27So I finish with a word from Siren Kierkegaard, who has stayed with me for many, many years.

06:34And I simply leave you with this. Life is best understood backwards. But it has to be lived.

06:42It has to be lived.

Colin Melville urges new Derry doctors to heed example of John Hume ahead of retirement as GMC Medical Director

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