Innovation and Creativity
These are qualities usually easier to recognise than to
quantify or calibrate. Moreover, the environment and context in
which a GP works affects the extent of the effort required to be
innovative. It is easier to be innovative in a stimulating and
supportive environment. It is likely that this achievement category
may, for some candidates’ overlap with others, e.g. leadership, or
teaching and education.
Innovation has been described as ‘applied creativity’ and ‘a
constituent of design’. A potential Fellow submitting in
this category should be able to point to identifiable outcomes of
his or her innovative or creative activity in one or more of the
following areas:
- Clinical care, e.g. innovative models of care delivery or the
application of best practice
- Teamwork, e.g. innovative ways of multidisciplinary
working
- Non-academic publications e.g. newsletters, journalism,
articles, commentary, books
- The philosophy of primary care, e.g. new ways of describing,
analysing or explaining aspects of general practice through, for
example, lectures, writing or the media
- Teaching, e.g. initiating original ways of teaching and
learning in the practice, or within vocational training
- Media engagement, e.g. promoting the understanding of, and
higher standards for, primary care through contributions to
newspapers, magazines, radio and television
Particularly strong candidates in this category are likely to be
– at least within the profession – household names by virtue of the
impact of their work. They might have had an influence on some
aspect of the discipline at national level, or be associated with a
particular ‘high profile’ project. Educational innovators might,
for example, have developed new materials for e-learning, distance
learning, continuing professional development or multi-professional
education.
[1] Prof. Richard Kimbell, Goldsmiths University of
London, 2002.