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Thank you, Sin the Wins Forum and the members of the conference team for your kind invitation. Er and for that introduction, it is an absolute pleasure to be invited to speak today. I can see many friends in the audience, many colleagues, but undoubtedly there will be many people here who are wondering who on earth is this woman and what credentials can she possibly have to er to speak today? So and particularly to speak on compassionate leadership. Of course, for some of you, you may not recognize me out of uniform and of course that that crazy unruly hair finally a little bit under control. I spent a wonderful day recently with the emerging leaders just listening in and I now know I am a persuader and an optimistic introvert or in simple terms, just someone who tries to work hard to get it right. And someone who also just tries to be happy to keep it going and to somehow make sure that I at the very least keep my family on an even keel my patients safe and my teams happy. My name is Linda or, and I'm an ent consultant in Birmingham, but I'm also a regular serving army officer. I was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1988 I serve as both part of the defense medical services and the general staff and I am the UK defense professor of surgery, the first lady since Henry Vi vi. So, um, but I also work as, um, one of the research advisors here as the college. Um, I'm the 31st defense professor of surgery and I lead an academic department that crosses all surgical specialties apart from T and O, they have their own surgical professor through the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. So what you need to think about is un negotiating skills. The latter appointment as the R CS research advisor is primarily to help to help work with the fellowships, grants, awards and prizes and that is just a little corner of the work done by Martin Coomer before he retired. And I work closely with the research committee. How, who's in the audience here with Ralph to Tomson R, research director and Peter Hutchinson, professor of surgery in Cambridge. I was born in Northern Ireland. I was brought up there with a mother who is a headmistress father, who is an engineer, a very keen rugby player. And I learned my first lesson in leadership to observe and pick one's moments when you can really truly influence torn between a mother who desperately wanted an academic daughter and a father who wanted me to bring home some silverware as a squash player. Uh I also realized then that there was some fundamentals about good leadership, particularly compassionate leadership that crosses all boundaries and never to underestimate the just simple things like consideration and good manners. No overt expensive birthday parties for me because not every family could afford to reciprocate. And my mother, is there anybody from Northern Ireland in the audience or perhaps online was the head of a small school called Strand in Belfast. Not a particularly affluent area. Although my mother loved that work, but she had learned really early on about leadership and compassionate leadership. I remember as a child coming up to Christmas in those days, you used to be able to buy Christmas presents through the school and the school would get a little money to put in a pot. That money was used to buy presents for Children and families who were less well off. My mother used that scheme in her schools for years. And I remember every Christmas being bundled into the car in the dead of light. So not to embarrass anybody with bags that were from the local supermarket again. So no one knew what was in them and quietly delivering those presents to people who needed them, but who absolutely. My mother would never have allowed anyone else to know. And she was brought up to that by a father who himself had a team who worked for him who in those days in northern Ireland, it was a sectarian divide that meant it was not always easy for them to work for my grandfather. And when one of those ladies was injured very badly for that work, he paid her wages until the day she died. In order to make sure that that leadership role as the person who was to look after her was done with compassion and fulfillment. I ended up at Bristol, I did a chemistry degree there and needing at that stage, flexibility and good access to a reasonable budget in the way to earn it. And of course, no leader, compassionate or not will ever escape the need to fulfill their requirements to a budget. I then went on to Sandhurst and at that point, it was really ingrained that the things that we use every day are the things that show in our leadership journey. If we don't use them in our daily lives, we just won't be able to pull on them when we need to. And in those difficult moments, whenever flexibility and decisions have to be made, those things ingrained from the beginning will come up to the surface. And of course, for me, it has also been obvious, I think through seeing my mother and my grandfather, the things we do may not necessarily get a lot of credit, but actually the people around us see it when we do it well and it passes forward, it always pays forward. So never think that moment when you step out of your way to do something that is a little awkward that, you know, isn't going to be that easy or perhaps just as tricky it will be seen and valued. So I ended up a little older, starting my career as a surgeon and I was given some wise advice, enjoy the journey because you simply never know where you're going to end up. And when tougher times, I really learned that it is that time that you pull on. Later on. In the end, I became both a surgeon, a soldier and a scientist and it's quite difficult to tease them apart. Many here will have taken a very similar route punctuated by life, perhaps even by research as mine was as well. But I'm really cognizant that there isn't a person in this room or online that isn't already a leader and this talk is in no way preaching at you about how to do it. If you want a classical treatise and how to be a leader, the internet is awash with dictate and advice. However, I do hope that perhaps for some of our more campaign and harden surgeons er that there may be the old nugget. And for those perhaps starting out, I hope there will be pointers. You may wish to consider when you start to develop your own leadership style. When I sat down to really dissect the biggest influences, it came down to two groups of things, family life, education, sport. And the second was a really long career in the military and surgery. But I need to acknowledge that any leadership skills I've gained, I have in the latter predicated them all on influences from the first family education and life experiences. So how and when do we need to turn on our leadership skills? Well, the when is really easy, it's all the time. The how is more difficult? So how do we lead at times when we're stuck in COVID at night, you've done multiple turnings of patients, you've lost lots of tubes and the really annoyed with you. And the only thing you can do is draw on your theater shoes and hope that that's the smile that comes to the fore or how do you do it when you're on call and you're walking across as a consultant from that grotty room. And the only thing you see is a post box with some snow on it. And you remember that you have a daughter called Alice or how do you bring it when your casualty arrives in an ambulance like this? And you realize that casualty is a friend or a colleague. And I think some of the key things are to remember that small does not mean mighty, the small, the quieter person is often the one to listen to. And actually those are often the people that I've in my world seem get the best outcomes. No one wants a debate in my world when somebody shouts duck. But equally no one in our teams has the monopoly on spotting danger and letting the team know for evil to flourish. It is said that it only takes good people to do nothing. And that is an absolute tenon of everything that I believe. Of course, one has to have times when one is flexible and one also has to make sure the tree doesn't fall over. And for that, there are moments when one has to make just rational, sensible, considered judgments. And we do this every day. It's also important that we do it when things go horribly wrong. So soldiers will learn to strip and clear a weapon of a blockage with their eyes shut. It doesn't matter what's going on around them, they will just do it. And we do that in surgery. When you inadvertently nick the jugular vein taking out that tumor. Nobody wants a panic. You focus completely. I bet nobody even hears whether there's music on and theater on that day because you're focusing and these are all things that means our worlds coincide. But my world is quite complex and I bet nobody here realized that our most junior rank, a private soldier can also be called a Fuselier, a bomb deer, a highlander, a ranger or even more confusingly a corporal of horse. Equally a captain in the army is a fairly junior rank. This is an R A MC three pips, but a captain in the navy is a very senior rank and deeply embarrassing when they stay in an army mess to put in the captain's accommodation. And of course, the red stripe means they're a doctor black stripe navy means they're not all these things we gradually learn by osmosis. And I think in leadership, that is also true. No one knows how to do it all. At the beginning, it just takes time, preparation and knowledge, I think are key. There is no excuse for bad planning. There's no excuse in our world for not putting the work in to know the situation. Leading a team is so critical that actually for us, it means life and death. And even as a doctor, you will be put in a position where you are asked to do that. And of course, the teams don't require people to shout this picture at the bottom. The one that shows everyone waiting for the helicopters arrive, the commanding officer was in that group. We had so many casualties that we all went out there with our gloves on to get them in our teams help our teamwork and our leadership and our compassionate leadership is also underpinned by training. We train constantly both ourselves and as teams, little things like being able to acknowledge the information expertise of a piu nurse who's working with you in Iraq. When you realize you've got a small child coming in and you want to learn how to place your hands. Soldiers are incredible. They learn very fast. Who's the bluffer? And they will tell you. But of course, one of the things that is really important in our world is to let people know us. And for that one might assume that it's very formal. Everyone will call me, mam. Everyone will stand to attention and call me Carlo. That is not true. I'll be very lucky if stood to attention. I get the odd mum but mostly I get Dock or, or doc or Dock Linda and that's fine. The medical teams find that middle road with their teams and yes, we did have Fuser two. I'll tell anybody who wants to know about Fuso one which did sink and there was 1/7 dwarf who is taking the picture. So keeping your heels head and standards, high consistent standards are critically important for us so that the team know, but also so that we can fall back on them as a moral compass when things go wrong and conflicting emotions abound and we are emotional. We see awful things and you do feel it, but you have to have consistent standards in that world. Everyone has their own individual responsibilities and genuinely diversity is critical. We have not covered ourselves in Gloria about this, but we are trying and within the medical fraternity, we take this very seriously without diversity, there is no new thought without new thought there can be no way forward. There is a sense in the military of being involved in something that's more than the individual. And that also helps. And of course, everyone needs different things. And just because you're the search dog doesn't mean you're not entitled to your body arm or hearing defense. So coms and teams critically important again to communicate, sometimes even the doctor needs to know how to use the radio And that's important because of course, that also tells me that my medic who is carrying that radio has twice the weight, which means they need to be rested more often. So I need to know what they're carrying. And equally if you happen to be a helicopter pilot in the American forces, I think maybe even in ours, a Red Cross can mean a landing site for us. It means a hospital. The key thing here is not to put the Red Cross on top of the hospital as we have found in the past. And this slide, I know everybody here who's heard me talk nose. I love, I always think of it. Our lives are a jumble. So many strands bring them together as a cord and it's strong. But actually the much stronger thing is that network, the diamond and that is true of all the threads of our lives, your health, your physical health, how many of us ignore it? Our mental health, all those different pieces come together to allow us to really function and if we don't function, we will never lead. So, thank you, Thomas Edison said, I've not failed. I've just found 1000 ways to show it won't work. Personal responsibility underpins leadership and ress stay healthy and well. But of course, for us, it isn't something that we treat lightly in any way. I don't think anybody here thinks this and it is absolutely true that freedom, the freedom to speak is not free. So do what is right? Not what is easy. And thank you like the armed forces, we in surgery are given this incredible privilege to share in moments of huge significance in people's lives. And I truly believe it's a personal responsibility to work and adapt, strive to deliver the very best for our civilian, for our military colleagues in our hospitals in the NHS in peace and war and in war. I also in this and believe that in this time it affords us the opportunity to do these incredible jobs. Nothing is quite like the welcome you get when you come home to your family, one can be little and pretty fierce if needed. And of course, all of this, I hope will allow us one day to pass on the love of this incredible profession to our Children. Thank you. Thank you so much, Doc Linda. That was an excellent talk. And I think everyone learnt a lot. So can we just all give another round of applause for Linda.