“Being a health professional is first and foremost a vocation. We teach our students the importance of always maintaining the highest standards of professionalism”

09/10/2009 at 4:51 pm · Filed under Acupuncture training course, The first year, The Principal and tagged: acupuncture, Bonny Williams, LCTA, Practice Manager, Principal, Professionalism, Reflectivity, training

New LCTA Principal, Bonny Williams, talks about her new role, staff changes and what the first year acupuncture students’ beginning of term is like.

“Since becoming Principal I have been on quite a steep learning curve.  Even though I have worked in an executive role at LCTA for seven years already, people look to me for different things now that I am Principal and it turns out there is a lot that Susanna dealt with that I didn’t know about.

“As I have become more comfortable in my role, I have begun to understand the shape it will take – and the role will certainly be different from the one Susanna fulfilled.  We have actually rewritten the job description and at the moment I am observing and taking the time to understand my new role within the structure of the College.

“It’s quite interesting to look at the business from a new perspective and to see how effectively it is run.  It’s giving me an opportunity to take a fresh look at procedures, to assess whether we can improve them and to decide how best to put systems like Key Performance Indicators in place.”

So have there been other changes in the staff team at LCTA?

“Anna Bernard is our new Practice Manager.  She has excellent experience running clinics and is brilliant with students. Anna maintains very clear boundaries and is an excellent role model for students moving into a career as a professional practitioner. We are also about to interview for a new Joint Academic Manager and hope to be able to appoint someone very soon.

“Thankfully my appointment to the Principal role has it been an easy transition for everyone in the office – mainly I think because they knew me already.  Lots of people have said it would have been strange to have someone from outside take up the role and the reception I’ve had from staff has been really lovely.  Most people felt that it was a natural progression.”

What have you been doing during the first week of term?

“We don’t have a lot of contact with students over the holidays, so I have been going to see each class as they have returned to College to introduce myself in my new role.  A lot of them already know me obviously, but I wanted to give them the opportunity to get to know me in my new capacity as Principal.

“I met all the first years on their induction days.  Susanna used to run the induction so it made sense for me to take over from her.  Induction day is not a teaching day, but it is important to us as it’s about setting the flavour for the year – giving new students an idea of who we are, the character of the College, how things are done, what’s expected of them and what they can expect of us.  It’s about our values.

“During the induction day we cover a lot of fairly dense material, but in a nice light way – there’s a lot of administrative information that we have to pass on – but the key is to ensure that they understand not just what we want them to do but how we want them to do it.

“At LCTA being a health professional is first and foremost a vocation.  We expect our students’ values to be those of a professional – they should always be doing their best, always putting the interests of the patient first and always modelling the values of modesty, respectfulness and all the things that underpin professionalism.  Being a professional is about being willing to go that extra mile, even if it is the end of a very long day and you are tired.  As a consummate professional, you keep working to the best of your ability until the job is completed.

“We also talk a lot about reflectivity.  We encourage our students to be honest and reflective all the way through their courses.  This is always the harder path to take but we expect it of them because if they can’t do it for themselves they won’t be able to do it for their patients.  A good practitioner should be able to deal first with their own issues, leaving the way clear to deal with their patients properly.  Personal development is a major part of the course and we believe that it is only through self-development that you discover the resources required to deal effectively with other people’s issues.  It’s the difference between being a good practitioner and a great practitioner and at LCTA we aim to produce great practitioners every time.”

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