Seeds of Leadership Seminar

Leadership Training at Kumasi Teaching Hospital

Dr. Peter Donkor,  the head of the surgical cleft team at the hospital, and his group participated in the leadership seminar.  This was their first experience of training of this kind as a team, not specific to medical skill training.  It generated lots of participation and discussion about working together to sustain an effective team.  This was for good reasons as their collective efforts alter one life at a time for the better each time they do cleft surgery in Ghana.    The seminar included the Strength Deployment Inventory assessment about motivation and conflict.   Sometimes when people get along so well, it is as the expense of not involving people with other strengths that are also needed.  The group readily saw what they might do different as well as why they got along well together.  The surgical cleft team had much to be proud about their work over recent years.   In the day of training they gained new insight into their work together as leaders sharing the cause of their group at Komfo Anokye Hospital.

“The members of the team who took part in the training included surgeons, paediatricians, anaesthetists, a speech pathologist, an orthodontist, dentists, nurses, nutritionists, and health care assistants. It was the very first time the whole team had undergone such training. Diana was able to help us to accept that we were all leaders at various stages of our interaction, and proceeded to guide us to evaluate our individual personalities, identify our inherent weaknesses and strengths, as well as the steps we needed to take to improve on our performance as leaders. She demonstrated exceptional skill in managing to pitch the training at such a level that each of us felt we had learned a lot, in spite of the differences in our educational attainment.”    Dr. Peter Donkor, head of the Surgical Cleft Team, Komfo Anokye Hospital, Kumasi, Ghana

Okuno School Yard

As part of the arrangements for conducting the seminar, three days prior to the seminar,  12 year old Emmanuel Amoh from Okuno Village on the southwest Ghana coast experienced the magic of Dr. Donkor and his cleft team converting Emmanuel’s cleft to a smile.  Smile Train (an international agency helping transform lives with funds for cleft solutions) participated in the arrangements also.