College awards Honorary Fellowship to Professor Michael West CBE

14 Oct 2021

Our Honorary Fellowships give recognition to senior clinicians across the world, who have made significant contributions to the healthcare profession. The College has awarded an Honorary Fellowship to Professor Michael West CBE. The award was presented to Professor West at the President’s Conference on 7 October 2021.

Professor West graduated from University of Wales in 1976 and was awarded a PhD in 1977 for his research on the psychology of meditation. He is currently a Professor of Organisational Psychology at Lancaster University, a visiting Professor at University College Dublin and Emeritus Professor at Aston University in Birmingham. He has been a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Kings Fund since 2013. In recognition of his services to compassion and innovation in healthcare, he was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list in 2020.

Professor West has written, edited and co-edited 20 books and has published more than 200 articles about teamwork, innovation, leadership, and culture within healthcare. His latest book published this year entitled ‘Compassionate Leadership’ is dedicated to all the health and social care staff working during the pandemic.

His dedication to the issue of compassion in healthcare has led him to conduct important work on behalf of the General Medical Council, including a major inquiry into the mental health and wellbeing of doctors. Co-chaired with the late Dame Denise Coia, this 2-year inquiry resulted in the publication of ‘Caring for doctors Caring for patients’ in 2019. Michael has also conducted important research into the mental health and wellbeing of nurses and midwives, resulting in The King’s Funds report ‘The Courage of Compassion: Supporting nurses and midwives to delivery high quality care’ in 2020.

Accepting the award from College President, Professor Jackie Taylor, Professor West said:

“I think that this institution, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, especially under Jackie Taylor’s leadership, has made a real contribution to transforming culture and will continue to do so.

“We have to come to see ourselves as a species as more collaborative, more cooperative, and more compassionate, to respond to the challenges that we now face. Because of what I have experienced in health and social care services, and from institutions like the Royal College, I have every hope that as a species humanity will respond to that challenge.

“I feel really honoured, thank you so much”.

Category: College