SAK (Showing Acts of Kindness) and POW (Pearls of Wisdom)

by Raju Ramesh
Department of Trauma and Orthopaedics, Torbay Hospital

Corresponding author email: [email protected]

In this busy world we live now, we seem to have very little time for our colleagues. Each one of us lives in a bubble almost insulated from others. We fail to recognise a silent epidemic that has spread far and wide right under our nose. Many of us do not seem to recognise this pandemic or if they do, they do not acknowledge it and continue to work through this. I am talking about stress in the work place and its consequence on mental and physical wellbeing. There are a number of opportunities which we could use to break this shell and help others.

In the continuum of stress leading on to burnout or even death, we need a number of tools to address each 'stage' of the problem. Showing Acts of Kindness (SAK) is a very simple easy to do shift in attitude which will break this insulation. SAK is a collection of ideas and an attitude change within our work place which enables team comradery. It will allow the team ethos to bloom and grow, and low-level chatter is addressed regularly.

SAK is universally applicable at all stages and in fact will be an excellent tool to start broaching the subject in an unobtrusive fashion, especially because many of those who suffer with stress are too proud to ask for help. SAK aims to address low levels of unrecognised stress, unhappiness and dissatisfaction in the work place. It is an easy to do act by everyone and benefits both the giver and the receiver.

The SAK campaign started four years ago, well before COVID-19 hit us. As this was successful before, the campaign was continued during COVID-19 with some adaptations. What did SAK in the orthopaedic department consist of? The core message from SAK is to be kind to one another, and the components we used to build the SAK were;

Phone numbers of each team member and supervising consultants were exchanged, and juniors were asked to call the seniors directly when needed.
Each new junior doctor was buddied with another member of the team as a support person on the floor.
An orthopaedic WhatsApp group was created and all members were included. It was used as a medium of communication – alerting about pending work in wards and initiating coffee breaks etc.
Rota management was promptly addressed with a responsive Practice Manager.
Daily 10min teaching (called Pearls of Wisdom – POW teaching) following TED style talks were delivered by all members of the team. In COVID-19 times we achieved this by uploading the teaching video to our own YouTube channel (POWs of Torbay).
A mandatory mid-morning FIKA style coffee break with every team member took place. This break served as an excellent opportunity to probe and interact with all, and usually allowed people to open up and talk about things other than work.
Every evening it was mandatory for the seniors to meet the juniors on the ward and make sure that they hand over the problems to the on-call team and not take that burden home.
A regular supply of snacks and drinks were provided during the on-call times, especially during weekends.
Any good actions, well executed management plans or operations were openly complimented to improve the morale.
A clear description of the support structure available in the department and in the hospital was provided at the start of the job.

Other departments may adopt some or all of these ideas, or bring in their own bespoke actions in their daily practice. SAK does not have to be limited to doctors alone, it can be applied to every team in the workplace and outside.

For us, SAK has worked as a brand identity and even after four years a lot of good practices are still carried out. It has made our department a well liked and enjoyable place to work as a junior which is also evident from the GMC junior doctors survey.