Melaine Coward is a Professor and Head of School of Health Sciences at the University of Surrey. She qualified as a Registered Nurse and worked in the field of Oncology and Haemato-oncology nursing in a variety of areas including London teaching hospitals and a specialist cancer hospital.
She has a keen interest in coaching students to utilise their previous knowledge and experiences in Higher Education to further develop themselves. This aspect of her teaching practice aligns to her pedagogical research around approaches taken to teaching reflection in nurse education.
– ‘I think some of my ability to deal with those challenges comes from my clinical practice. I have spent years breaking bad news to people, significant bad new with cancer diagnosis but also supporting people’s reactions to that.’
– ‘Sometimes, if you’re having a conversation with a colleague and they are not comfortable with the silence, I will often say, I am being silent to let you reflect.’
– ‘A patient once told me: Don’t ask me questions, unless you have time to hear my answer. This was so powerful because unless you have time for people, don’t even give them a look. As a nurse, it made me feel guilty. It was the greatest feedback. It hurt.’
In this episode, we talk about:
– Courageous conversations around performance
– What makes you a high performing leader
– The feedback of one of her cancer patients that changed everything
– The structure of a courageous conversation
Let us know what you think about this podcast.
This is Melaine Coward’s webpage.
I am running my next Masterclass on ‘Coaching for Managing Difficult Conversations’ on 28th January 2020 at Wallacespace in London. You can book your place here.