Clinical Review

I wonder if it was a matter of "good luck"? Ever since the idea of conducting clinical review meetings was introduced last year, I always happen to be the first person to present for every year. I was the first to present last year, and I was still the first to present this year.

The clinical review meetings were meant for our department's professional staff (i.e. the counsellors and the social workers). Clinical review meetings are organised about once every four weeks. For each meeting, one professional staff will present a video recording of one of his/ her counselling or case work sessions to the rest of the professional team. We are rostered to be the presenter for each of the clinical review meetings.

In short, the purpose of these clinical review meetings is to improve our skills in our work with our clients. During these meetings, the rest of the team will give feedback to the presenter about what they observed about the presenter's use of interviewing or counselling skills, as presented in the recording. In turn, we hope such an exercise would help hone each of our skills and improve our practice, and in turn benefit our clients.

For your information, we do not do video recording of our client without their consent. In fact, we will get informed-consent from our clients after trying to explain to them the purpose and the nature of doing a video recording of the session. The video recordings are treated with great respect. We locked the tapes in secured lockers, and once we are done with the tape, we will erase the recordings. Furthermore, the members of the professional team who have watched the tape are required to abide by the professional code of ethics, part of which includes observing confidentiality. We have a lay-man term for that "What is shown and discussed in the room, stays within this room".

My colleagues offered some encouraging feedback on what I had done well for that session. At the same time, they also offered constructive feedback on ways I could have done differently for the sesion. There has been quite a lot of learning for me from today's clinical review session.

But by the end of the session, I felt totally drained from the discussion, the interaction, and the processing of all the information that was shared during the session. One thing for sure, my head started to ache, and I felt very mentally tired. Maybe my preference for introversion starts to show after I meet with a group of people?