Great Strides

As part of the Royal College of Surgeon’s (RCSed) Exercise and Surgery campaign the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine (FSEM) put forward a panel of experts to take part in a debate, titled Great Strides, on the promotion of physical activity as a healthcare benefit.

The panel discussion is featured in this month’s (June’s) Surgeons’ News and included an FSEM panel of Fellows and Members alongside key medical, exercise and communications experts.

Dr Andrew Murray, Fellow of the Faculty and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow’s Lead for Physical Activity commented in the discussion:” Getting more people more active more often has been established as a compelling aim – it’s just a question of by what method do we achieve that?”

Mr John Duncan RCSed Council Member and Director of Undergraduate Teaching University of Aberdeen, added: “As well as for public health, physical activity is important in getting patients fitter before surgical procedures, because it reduces complication rates and speeds up recovery. The question is, how we get this message into undergraduate teaching and how we inculcate that from an early stage in clinical careers.”

Jon Dearing, Member of the Faculty and the representative for Exercise and Surgery at the RCSed summarised the discussion: “We started off talking about promoting physical activity to patients and finished off with promoting that same message to healthcare staff. We have covered undergraduate training, postgraduate training, involvement of the third sector and keeping hospital staff fit.

“However, the overarching issue seems to be leadership – not necessarily top-down leadership, but thought leadership and leading by example, and taking the initiative to drive change. Hopefully, we have shown today that anyone who has a clinical involvement in patients can play a role in that.”

The full discussion is featured in the June edition of Surgeons’ News by the RCSed.