Heartbeat: Don’t be a bystander – inspiring medic empowers colleagues to speak up

August 26, 2021

Dr Sarb Clare is one of our well-known clinicians who heads the acute medicine department and is also deputy medical director.

But she is also leading the way in empowering colleagues – by holding a series of events where she encourages people to speak and stand up for themselves.

She has established the Women Empowering Women Network and the latest session for medics, held on 30 June, called ‘Stand with me, not by me, be an ally, don’t bystand, but upstand’ addressed unconscious bias.

She explained: “We have delivered previous events before lockdown, but feedback showed that delegates still felt apprehensive about speaking up informally and formally due to upset, career damage and mistrust in the system.

“In response the network felt we needed to look at solutions and strategies that bystanders could apply to support the individual being harmed.

“We addressed our unconscious bias and looked at how to change from being a bystander to an upstander. We discussed banter and argued whether we should we ban this from the NHS.

“We also analysed real life scenarios and what interventions we can make. It was also important that people were informed of the formal pathways of grievance and escalation. This was delivered by our responsible officer Dr Mark Anderson.”

Dr Clare has spoken about this subject in a TEDx Talk. To watch this please click here.