Mentoring

I just spent a fun morning at home with a lady I have met only once before.

She was to have been my maternity leave locum, but decided that not only did she not have the skills to do the job, she was not happy with the arrangement/offer made by her/my employer. I must say that I was impressed by her decision, as I know I have felt at various times that I have been taken advantage of by my employer and my value not really considered. She has been strongly encouraging me not to be limited by my current situation, to think outside the box and show my "power" by demanding improved employment conditions with either the same or different employers. She has also made the idea of setting a private practice up seem much less daunting.

Lots to think about.

Anyway, I just spent the morning with her in what I would call a mentoring session. She doesn't have much experience with paeds, and was particularly concerned about her assessment skills. We spent some time going through the non-standardised observational assessment battery she has developed. It looks like she has the assessment part under control, but lacks confidence in the interpretation and treatment planning side of things. We talked about lots of therapy ideas that she could use in both clinic settings and in setting up home programmes.

It was useful for me too.

I should probably look at setting up a similar kind of arrangement for my professional development. Despite what she and many of the teachers at GSS think I don't have all the answers, and am NOT an expert in current treatment protocols or research. I just had a great weekend learning about SAMONAS, an auditory intervention programme, but I feel no where near ready to confidently prescribe this protocol. I would love to have supervision in using it for a while, and someone to challenge my clinical reasoning and encourage me to look at outcome measures more than I do.