Welcome from the AMA, BMA and CMA presidents
Featured speaker: Professor Jeremy Howick, PhD, Professor of Empathic Healthcare, Director of the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, University of Leicester, UK
Drawing on his experience as founder of the Oxford Empathy Programme, the Global Network for Empathy in Healthcare, and the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, Professor Jeremy Howick delivers a powerful case for empathy as one of the most effective – and underused – tools in modern medicine.
Backed by over 20 years of research, Professor Howick reveals how empathy reduces pain, complaints, and even mortality, while also protecting clinician wellbeing and improving team performance. His latest research also shows that it is highly cost-effective. This keynote blends compelling evidence with practical strategies leaders and practitioners can use to embed empathy across healthcare systems – from patient care to executive leadership.
Key takeaways:
- Science-backed tools to improve outcomes through empathic care
- Practical ways to reduce burnout and improve staff wellbeing
- Scalable strategies to build empathy into training, leadership, and culture
Empathy isn’t a luxury – it’s a clinical and operational necessity. Professor Howick will equip leaders with the tools to deliver compassionate, high-performing care.
Selection of oral presentations and interactive workshops to come.
Selection of oral presentations and interactive workshops to come.
Exploring how data and measurement can be transformed into meaningful system-level change, whether burnout and wellbeing survey scores have ever driven meaningful behavioural change within organisations, and what critical aspects these surveys fail to capture. Moving beyond simply tracking burnout, the discussion will focus on how organisations can use insights to drive practical improvements, address human factors, and create supportive environments where doctors can thrive.
Moderator: Dr Heather Farley, Vice President of Professional Satisfaction, AMA
Panel:
Dr Claire Ashley, GP and author of The Burnout Doctor, UK
Dr Jane Lemaire, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary and Co-Founder and Co-Director, The Well Doc Initiative, Canada
Dr Colin West, Professor of Medicine, Medical Education, and Biostatistics, Mayo Clinic, USA
Featured speaker: Dr Amrita Sen Mukherjee, portfolio GP, positive psychology and high-performance practitioner, disability advocate at Your Wellbeing Doctor, UK
Followed by conversation with Dr Clodagh Corrigan, Deputy Chair of Representative Body, BMA
When doctors become patients, the disruption extends far beyond physical health, often challenging identity, belonging, and professional purpose. For many physicians, medicine forms a central part of identity, meaning illness or disability can profoundly destabilise the sense of self. Yet physician health conversations frequently focus on burnout and workload, while the experiences of doctors living with illness or disability remain comparatively overlooked.
Drawing on personal experience, qualitative research, and insights from positive psychology, this keynote explores how physicians navigate identity disruption following illness, particularly when the condition is invisible or poorly understood.
Findings from interpretative phenomenological research examining post-traumatic growth in doctors with acquired invisible disability illuminate a complex journey from stigma, isolation, and loss of professional identity toward acceptance, meaning-making and renewed purpose.
The session will also explore the wider cultural implications for healthcare systems. Disability inclusion remains an under-recognised pillar of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), yet it holds significant potential to strengthen compassion, retention, and sustainable performance within the medical workforce.
Attendees will gain practical insights into how individuals, teams and organisations can break professional silos, cultivate psychologically safe environments, and recognise doctors with disability as assets to the profession rather than exceptions within it.
Key takeaways:
- How to replace judgement with curiosity
- Ways to make inclusion visible in everyday practice
- Strategies to build systems that retain, not exclude
Selection of oral presentations and interactive workshops
Selection of oral presentations and interactive workshops
This session will explore how genuine inclusion can transform the culture of medicine, overcoming barriers to entry and success in the workplace. Our panellists will share stories of advocating for change and creating communities of belonging within the profession, offering tools for physicians at all career levels to contribute to breaking silos.
Moderator: Dr Bolu Ogunyemi, President-Elect, CMA
Panel:
Dr Mary Doherty, Clinical Associate Professor, University of Dublin, Ireland
Dr Alika Lafontaine, CMA past president, Canada
Professor Lisa Meeks, Professor of Medical Education, The University of Illinois, College of Medicine, at Chicago, USA
Dr Khadija Owusu, GP trainee and Founder/CEO AKAYA Foundation, UK
Selection of oral presentations and interactive workshops to come.
Healthy physicians mean safer patients, better quality of care and health system sustainability but to achieve this, we need to move beyond rhetoric to policies and practices that transform physician health from aspiration to action. This session will bring together international leaders to explore how global and national policies are shaping the future of physician wellbeing, creating safer environments, reducing burnout and promoting sustainable healthcare.
Dr Amit Kochhar, Chair of Representative Body, BMA
Dr Jeff Blackmer, Chief Medical Officer and EVP Professional Practice, CMA
Dr Willie Underwood, President-Elect, AMA
Selection of oral presentations and interactive workshops to come.
Featured speaker: Professor Mihaela van der Schaar, Professor of Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Medicine at the University of Cambridge
Followed by conversation with Dr John Whyte, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer, AMA
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