WIHL Conference 2022

l2022 saw the HLA’s first

ever Women In Healthcare Leadership (WIHL)

conference. It was an incredible opportunity for HLA scholars who have not had any previous experience at running a conference to get involved in a safe and supportive environment.

Under the guidance of the conference chair, vice chair and a back-office support team from Medics Academy, the scholars worked in small committees on different conference tasks such as poster and oral presentations, marketing, admin and communications. Speakers were sourced by all and managed by the chair and vice chair.

There was a total of 24 speakers involved in a mixture of lectures and panel discussions. The panel discussions on each of the days were opened up to allow any of the conference delegates to interact with the speakers, get involved with the discussions and ask questions. The conference also included a virtual challenge room, bake off style competition, posters and oral presentations.

Overall the marketing team managed to reach an amazing 94,300 people with an incredible 1698 interactions with their posts.

The conference itself was held over a 2 day period and the attending delegates gave some wonderful feedback such as ‘I really enjoyed the different perspectives given by the speakers related to leadership. Some of these ideas I had never known but I am glad to have attended the conference.’, ‘Incredibly motivational, definitely leading by example.’ And ‘A brilliant selection of truly inspiring speakers.’

The organising committees were given the opportunity to reflect and provide feedback on their experience as a whole, to see what they felt they had learnt from the experience, what they felt could have gone better and how it would equip them in the future should they ever wish to get involved in or run a similar event.

‘It was a great experience to be involved with this conference and I really appreciated the opportunity to learn so much.’

‘Considering my own involvement, I know that at times I wasn’t particularly confident in my decisions/ideas. I think this is down to the fact that it was my first time working on an organising committee, and I also had quite a lot of freedom within my role description (which came with both advantages and disadvantages). However, I have definitely learned a lot from this experience and would feel much more confident taking on a similar position in future.’

‘Was a brilliant team who all worked really well together - honoured to have worked alongside everyone!’

An experience such as this also gives HLA scholars an opportunity to experience working in and on committees and working groups. Finding ways of working with people you do not know well, forming a structure and hierarchy of responsibilities and learning how and when to delegate or take charge of specific tasks.

Thanks go out to the HLA and MA back office support teams, Carina Dowson as the WIHL Network lead for her support and to all the scholars involved in organising this event: Kathryn French (posters), Sundas Butt (Oral presentations), Shivani Rai (marketing team), Melissa Gough (marketing team), Aimee Wilkinson (marketing team), Sharmaine Quake (communications), Alice Barber (communications), Angel Rowlett (entertainment) & Ayla Ahmed (vice chair) and Andrea Johnson (conference chair).

“It was a great experience to be involved with this conference and I really appreciated the opportunity to learn so much.”

Andrea Johnson appointed as the Co-Lead of the Dental Network and as a Cohort Director for the Healthcare Leadership Academy (HLA)

lIt is no secret that Andrea is passionate about opening up opportunities for her fellow technicians and all other dental team members. The Healthcare Leadership Academy has, during Andrea’s scholar year, seen the drive and passion she has for this and wants to harness this energy and passion to expand their dental network. They too are passionate about increasing opportunities for every dental team member as equals. The HLA recognize and nurture leadership talent in many different roles and are very keen to help progress and develop nonclinical as well as clinical team members.

When asked about her initial reasons for joining the HLA and subsequently accepting the above roles within the HLA Andrea said ‘the HLA have shown genuine enthusiasm for supporting all potential leaders regardless of their job role within the healthcare environment. At no point within the application process or during my scholarship year was I made to feel any less significant than any other HLA scholar. In fact it was quite the opposite, everyone was thrilled to have the knowledge and perspective of someone sitting in a nonclinical based role.’

‘It is an absolute honour to have been given such important and influential roles within the HLA and I am very much looking forward to encouraging more dental team members to join us and the wide variety of medics in the HLA and also being able to nuture, guide and mentor our healthcare leaders of the future.’