Name of Lecturer: Dr.

Salasini

Name of Student and Application Number: Mukudzei. K.J Chirenda, TZM /14902

a) Self-Assessment and Goal Setting: Current strengths and areas of improvement:

Self-motivation would be my first and foremost strength. I would describe myself as an individual who is
profoundly driven to excel and reach the pinnacle of greatness. This emanates from the fact that I
understand that a professional life requires an individual who understands the predicaments associated
with work. This has inculcated a mentality within me to be firm, logical and critically assess my
predicaments in work so that my work may be evaluated as being incredibly successful and commendable.
The characteristic itself strengthens me and ensures my progression in the workplace as I will be able to
induce an idea that sinks deep into their psyche to drastically improve their as well as my determination.
Past experience has taught me that problems are inevitable, however it is the belief the individual that
causes them to understand their situation and propel themselves to greater heights through self-drive and
in-depth understanding. The key opposer of this characteristic is self-doubt. Being the individual I am, I
have grown to understand that self-motivation is the most powerful remedy to self-doubt. The reasoning
being that, you are freed or otherwise liberated from self-doubt and that is when you become a great
individual.

Communication is my second strength. The ability to communicate a remarkable skill I possess that eases
my ability to persuade and justify my reasoning to others. Communication itself is abroad aspect by itself;
however, it can be broken down into audible and visual communication. When I want to bring about a
concept before my peers or mentor, I start my giving them a mental picture to visualise the abstract
phenomenon they are dealing with. It is way of learning that gives a better common ground for everyone to
understand. This being that it emanates from our species’ evolutionary ability to learn through one of their
senses which is sight. The last but not least is audible communication. I only use it to buttress my points so
that my peers may understand. The ability to be verbose and meticulously explain is essential to facilitate a
greater understanding. Communication by itself aids me in life to reach out in the world and be conversant
enough so that my knowledge and appreciation of my surroundings is vividly expressed. The ability to
clearly enunciate is important as your co-workers will have a strong belief in you and your capabilities as a
fellow co-worker.

Adaptability and Integrity are the last strengths I shall talk about. Firstly, integrity is essential so that people
in side and outside of the workplace are able to comprehend what kind of individual they are dealing with.
Maintaining honesty, clarity and ethical conduct ensures our patients trust us wholesomely. I would also
add that I believe in a strong work ethic by demonstrating diligence, responsibility and commitment to high
quality service. This in turn will aid to embellish your image as a doctor further strengthening your image
professionally. Integrity is a key aspect of life used to improve relations with your community and global
medical society. An aspect of integrity is transparency, to be open and clear about your professional
experience and patients’ medical needs. On the other side as future doctors we have to be serious and
strict about patient confidentiality as it has a profound impact on doctor, hospital and patient relations.
Adaptability is key in an everchanging world that requires you to have enough exposure and confidence to
immerse yourself into endless sea of new knowledge. Adapting was the only way our predecessors could
survive by stepping out of their comfort zones and into the real world to research on new ways to solve our
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existing and future problems. Adapting in of itself in the medical field has to be intellectually, credential
wise and technical so that we are up to date as medical professionals.

My two major areas of improvement for professional development are: Conflict Resolution and Time
Management respectively. Conflict resolution is an area of great dismissal amongst most circles; however, it
is important to note that disagreements amongst medical professionals do and will arise. What is important
is how we use our minds to counteract those problems. I believe that learning to resolve conflicts that
come in the form of disagreements will help me to navigate through disagreements constructively to bring
about mutual understanding towards a common solution. This will enhance my leadership skills and belief
in my institution that I am capable of the impossible. Time Management is one of my other areas of
concern, despite that fact that I am time conscious, however, I would only want to further perfect my ability
to balance my work and life commitments. It is essential that as doctors we understand the profession we
chose requires that we manage our time purposefully in order to ensure there is a fine balance between
work and personal time. This will improve my wellbeing physically and mentally by adjusting my life to my
professional requirements so I am well organised and articulated to induce the same reasoning on others.

Goals to be achieved in the next six months to support my professional development:

Developing expertise in clinical medicine and research.

This goal is highly important to me as it will aid in preparing me as a senior medical student to be and later
on working in residency. Additionally, this will aid in developing my competency in medical education. This
can be demonstrated by participating in teaching opportunities and learning how to effectively instruct
other colleagues. Research in on itself is important as it will enlighten me. This profound enlightenment will
drastically impact my acuities on what to expect from the medical field. Medical research will help
personalize medicine. Paving a way for personalised medicines will assist individuals in regard to their own
needs and difference in genetic makeup. Medical research will accelerate innovation and economic growth
in the healthcare industry and create new employment as we get to understand disease mechanisms to
provide targeted responses. This will be a leap in medical knowledge by discovering new treatments,
improving existing treatments and bringing forth preventative measure for diseases.

b) The skill I would like to improve, the steps I am going to take to develop this skill and what resources or
support I need:

The skill I would like to improve on would be leadership. Leadership is vital in the medical field because it
would reflect the magnitude of confidence and intellectual reasoning I possess. I desire to improve on it
because it will inculcate only the best characteristics of a genuine leader within me. I have started by
stepping up to be a class representative as it will be an eye-opening experience to represent all ninety-five
students in my HPFP 1 Class. I understand the great expectation before me and that is why I chose to
become one to ensure while I pursue my medical studies, I engage myself with a practical example of
leadership by offering myself into a position requiring commendable performance. The realisation of
starting this journey was mind-bobbling, however it will aid in expressing my formalities earlier in my
youth. This will ensure that by the time I would have to become a senior doctor I will lead all my colleagues
flawlessly without difficulty. The position itself changed me. Of course, only for the best, it keeps me
thinking how am I going to present my institution and the values it stands for? Remarkably, I found the
answer. That would be through influence. The power of influence is not to be undermined as it will support
my development in becoming an outstanding doctor, colleague, friend and most importantly a professional.
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I learned from the first day of my training to deeply understand the impact my actions would have on my
role as a leader and mentor amongst my classmates. Truly, I understood, ideologies can only be induced
only once, the inducer, being me, encapsulates those particular ideologies that make my current institution
renowned so others may follow suit.

The second step I have taken would be to become a mentor amongst my own colleagues. A mentor I would
say is an individual people aspire to be because of their impeccable skill, admirable behaviour and in-depth
knowledge. Becoming an individual who is constantly referred to was a process in which I had
metamorphosize into a mentor. I had to become the one that people would inquire on for very thing. This
did not only fixate itself on matters within the class. It has all managed to follow into personal life whereby
my colleagues ask on how they can improve their livelihoods and manage to cope with studying medicine
which could be a mouth-full but I answer calmly and respectfully. This also improves my verbosity to ensure
that anyone who needs my assistance can be aided immediately and precisely.

The third step I have taken to improve on my leadership skills would be mastering emotional intelligence
and delegation. I have learned to appreciate the fact that I needed to manage my emotions and those of
others, creating a more empathetic and supportive leadership style. One thing I learned was that in the
workplace we have to solve our problems using our intellect and not our emotions. This helps to save time
and provide meaningful solutions to our tasks at hand. Having read the book “Emotional Intelligence” by
Daniel Goleman, I understood how mastering your emotions tames the human persona. Daniel goes on
state that managing relationships and self-awareness is key. These two are key as self-awareness makes you
take heed of your responses and relationship management makes you understand how invaluable
professional and non-professional relationships are. Concerning delegating, I mastered the importance of
effectively empowering my respective class representatives (team members) and building their skills. This
has been done during our one-on-one meetings with them to discuss our strengths and areas of
improvement to ensure we continuously assess each other’s leadership capabilities.

The first form of resource provision and support I would need would be, I would appreciate having assess
to experienced individuals who exude the characteristics of a leader. Such individuals will give us a real
perception of what it truly means to be leader and improve our visionary scope as leaders to be. These
individuals will aid in providing a service of mentorship to guide us into the harsh but rewarding journey to
becoming medical doctors. Emanating from my point about influence, I understand that their
conceptualisation of professionalism far surpasses my own and would highly appreciate the intellectual
flow of knowledge from an individual of such great skill.

The second form of resource provision and support I would need, would be formal training by being
enrolled in leadership courses, workshops, or online programs to gain practical and theoretical techniques.
Through this intervention I will be able to acquire books, articles and listen to podcasts on leadership topics
that will enhance our skills to ensure I will be eligible enough for leadership rolls in the future. I understand
that having a mentor would be important as they build you up from the basic level of understanding until
we are advance enough to comprehend complex situations. I believe the proper individual with the right
skills can guide us to make informed decisions and nurture our understanding of professionalism along with
leadership. I say this keeping in mind the process in which a diamond in refined. The process itself corelates
with my idea that in order to improve we need the right people with the right vision and skill we desire
greatly. Those individuals through their service of mentorship will refine our crude understanding of the
landscape of a leader and a professional.
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The third and last form of resource provision and support I will need is Practical Hospital application and
regular practice of our theoretical knowledge. I see this as being the las t requirement as it will support my
grow professionally using real life examples of renowned medical institutions take us into their walls. It is
necessary that I develop an affiliation and recognition with my surroundings of the future. This is will
prepare me for the mental and physical requirements of my profession as a medical practitioner. After that
particular experience my misconceptions about the respective fields will be cleared via a realistic example
of a doctor’s professional life in leadership positions in the hospitals.

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