Outstanding people

Posted By Mark Anderson | Tags: outstanding people, annual staff conference | Comments (0)

At the BSO’s annual staff conference, Charles Hunt awarded prizes to two members of staff and faculty who had demonstrated work that was outstanding in the last year. The nomination process is carried out in the autumn term, with students and staff able to nominate people who they felt have demonstrated a commitment to our values that goes above and beyond that which was expected of them.

Phil Heeps, Registrar, was nominated by students and staff alike. Comments included the fact that he is so hard working and excellent at problem solving. Queries get answered “on the same day” and he and his team are always “so cheerful and approachable”. He was also put forwards as a particularly good line manager, going “out of his way to help his team or listen to any problems, even when he is swamped with work himself”. One nomination quoted another student who had declared that “Phil Heeps is a legend!” Phil has worked at the BSO since 1996, and is a qualified teacher as well as an excellent organiser and manager.

Dr Jorge Esteves, Head of Postgraduate Education and Student Research, was again nominated by both staff and students. The nominations made reference to the enormous input he had brought to the student research area since his appointment, with one student commenting on the way that he “often went out of his way to make sure students understood what was being taught and what was expected of them – this even included organising extra lectures and tutorials.” Colleagues reflected that they weren’t sure how we had managed without him in the past, and celebrated the fact that “this year we are planning validations for two MSc courses, down mainly to his hard work!” Jorge only joined the BSO in 2010, but in this short time has made an enormous contribution to the postgraduate area and to student research. He has also somehow found time to simultaneously complete his own PhD focused on palpation.

Congratulations should definitely go to both Phil and Jorge for their efforts, and Charles thanked them on behalf of the students, graduates, staff and faculty who had benefited from their hard work.

As well as the prize winners above, the senior team were struck by the range of nominations received, and the amazing stories given of support offered to individuals that had made a real difference when it counted. It mirrored the comments made by silver medal winner Lisa Dennison when she addressed graduands and guests at the recent graduation ceremony:

We felt as a year that we also needed to thank the BSO teaching and administration team because they worked hard to ensure we were sufficiently prepared to go it alone once qualified. Many of you offered suggestions of faculty, who perhaps deserved special thanks but to be honest so many different names were mentioned, it was difficult to single people out. Though we may not have realised it at the time, this probably illustrates what great teachers we had and how lucky we’ve been to have benefitted from their experience.

Twenty-five different individuals were nominated, together with a whole clinic team. The feedback from all the individual nominations was given, together with a small token of chocolates, to each nominee so that they could appreciate the different that they had made to others in the course of their work. Congratulations, and thanks on behalf of the BSO to all the nominees.