
Consultant Surgeon (rtd),
Educator, Mentor & Coach
BSc (hons), MBBS, MRCS, LRCP, FRCS, MS,
PG dip Med.Ed
Mr Terry offers Mentoring & Coaching for Surgeons and Surgical Trainees regarding Career Development & Advice, Turning Points in a Medical Career, Retirement and GMC issues
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Let's Connect
Text Only : 07876 506519
EMail : grsterry@aol.com
LinkedIn : Tim Terry
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The Mentoring Service
What Is Mentoring?
Developmental mentoring is a fulfilling relationship between somebody with more experience (mentor) and somebody with less (mentee), with the goal of helping both individuals, and the organisation they work in, to become elevated versions of themselves.

What can you expect from having a mentor?
A trained mentor guides the mentee to develop their own bespoke, contextual solutions to the presenting issue (professional and personal growth) rather than providing them with a paternalistic approach where the flow of information is one-way mentor->mentee. Mentors assist stress reduction and adaption to change.
The Mentoring Process
Mentoring commences with a process of matching between mentor and mentee (suitability to co-work) and establishing a contract to detail joint confidentiality, responsibilities, meetings and objectives. The purpose of mentoring is to bring about beneficial change in the mentee’s professional life. The mentoring sessions involve the mentee telling their story prompted by the mentor to establish what’s presently going on. The joint work proceeds to determine what would be a preferred, future goal instead. Additional, joint work delivers a future strategy of how to empower the relevant changes within a committed time frame.

Career Stages...
Surgical trainees:
Core Trainees (CT1,2) and run-through trainees (ST3 - ST8) are committed to their respective surgical ISCP curricula as well as providing work on the front-line of the NHS Trust in which they are employed. As such they are exposed to additional chronic stress across both domains. They are more likely to suffer a degree of burnout than consultant surgeons. The GMC NTR 2022 indicates 19% trainees have experienced very high-level burnout as compared to 12% of their trainers. Those in Fellowship posts (post ST8) usually have to move geographically, often abroad, and are learning complex surgical techniques whilst keeping watch for a future consultant post. These post CCT surgeons are highly committed perfectionists who are at risk of the Imposter Syndrome and burnout.
Surgeons:
The step up to first year consultant is full of challenges including relocation and setting up a service in a new hospital working with NHS Staff they do not know. This is perhaps the most stressful point in a surgical career. Consultants <44 years are more likely to suffer burnout than those >45 years. Overall, about 50% of surgeons suffer moderate level burnout at some time in their career.
Mental Health in Surgeons and Trainees:
The WHO (2019) defined burnout as an occupational syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is a dis-ease rather than a disease. It is characterised by emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy. Normally, a surgeon’s mental health is talked about as their wellbeing, which is maintained by having a harmonious life at work and home. Once resilience is lowered, usually in the professional workplace, wellbeing can be replaced by levels of burnout which affects performance and patient care. 15% of surgeons use addiction to cope (alcohol or drugs), 8% seek professional help, 6% require a leave of absence. Surgeons and trainees with burnout can benefit from developmental mentoring in improving their resilience and in restructuring their careers.
Preventing high levels of burnout is preferable to trying to manage the syndrome. This requires surgeons, and their trainees, to know how to use their emotional intelligence to become self-aware and to be able to self-regulate their behaviour. This needs to be done in alignment with frequent ‘small’ reflective practice in which the surgeon asks themselves how do they feel in their emotions about the state of their everyday work. If they note they are unhappy, taking the BMA Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, is one way to immediately confirm or refute the presence of burnout and seek help from a number of sources including a mentor.
Book Your Consultation
A healthy career and life balance is in reach.
Mentoring works extremely well for opportunities in a career. Notwithstanding this all Surgeons and trainees, at some stage of their career, will run into professional problems and in these instances access to a trained mentor can be life-affirming. In addition to professional development all Surgeons have a non-surgical life and this too may benefit from using a trained mentor to establish ‘Life-Balance.
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Tim Terry conducted a sample study from a group of 20 mentees in 2021 to establish how successful the mentees felt the process was. Please download the feedback sample below.