- Coaching and mentoring clients
"I felt a little challenged. This was a good thing for me to develop my learning needs."
Particularly helpful: "Openness and honesty"
“These sessions have been really useful partly because they haven’t gone as I expected.”
"The way your questions were worded meant that I thought about things differently."
"Andrew’s approach to coaching is relaxed and feels safe to enable me to think and talk."
"I find Andrew’s reflection and summarizing is particularly useful."
"I feel I benefit from having a few clear goals only as I want to have fluidity and work out my own goals."
"I think it probably helps adopting a therapeutic approach with some structure as it helps me feel I am listened to and understood."
"It also helps to have a laugh in-between to lighten the mood."
“..learning to be with uncertainty.”
“..reconnected with my passion.”
"I feel clearer about how to approach tasks that I don't know how to do.”
"I do feel I have a clearer vision, even if it wasn't quite what I would have predicted."
"Sessions are client led and not process driven."
"I felt that my efforts to put in place strategies from our last meeting were successful."
"I really feel supported and heard . Andrew's approach for each session it is brilliant."
"It has been very helpful to me in building up my confidence in my first consultant job"
- Children and parents
Young patient on discharge: “You never gave up and always believed in me, so thank you.”
Mother of patient: “Before you came along I felt misunderstood and unsupported by professionals…but you listened and understood, you totally got me, I could tell that from the first day I met you.”
Parent: Dr West is approachable, listens and helps child and parent, and we trust him completely.
- Professional colleagues
Clinical Director: “Andrew, this is so clear and thought out, and defines the issues. I need to use your thinking more often!”
School pastoral support: “How wonderful if all schools could have access to someone like you!”
Consultant medic: "Both my appraisals have been enormously helpful and valuable.”
Charge nurse: “When I read this I realised the magnitude of the skill and wisdom that you have and use so easily….not many can manage to challenge, explain, grasp the depth of what is being asked of them and then turn a reply into an art form of lovely writing.”
- What would you like to say?
If you would like to give me feedback on your own experience of working with me, please do so by going to the Contact page on this site.
I take all feedback seriously. Honest feedback is gold-dust. Criticism I shall reflect on but may not publish it here - though who knows?
Let me know if you are happy to be quoted and whether you prefer to be named or remain anonymous.
All testimonials here are genuine quotes from the last few years. They are not attributed because I did not check permission at the time.
- University Education 1978 - 1985
University of Cambridge, UK:
BA. First Class Honours in Natural Sciences with Part 1a in Law
Downing College Law Prize.
Whitby Medical Scholarship
University of Oxford, UK:
BM. BCh (Medicine)
- General Medical Experience 1985 - 1988
General Medical Experience. 1985 - 1988:
One year of Medical and Surgical Pre-registration House Jobs in the UK,
Two years of Geriatric and Psychogeriatric Medicine, Accident and Emergency, and sessional General Practice in New Zealand.
- Adult Psychiatry Experience 1989 - 1995
Over six years' experience in the UK and New Zealand, including:
Adult Outpatient Psychiatry with Psychotherapy,
General Adult and Old Age Psychiatry,
Psychiatry of Substance Misuse,
Acute Assessment,
Acute Inpatient Psychiatry,
Liaison Psychiatry,
Rehabilitation Psychiatry,
Learning Disability Psychiatry.
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 1995 - 2018
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry training 1995 - 2001:
I trained on the Oxford Higher Training programme. This included:
Inpatient Adolescent Psychiatry,
Paediatric Liaison Psychiatry,
Inpatient Child Psychiatry (Child Protection and Legal),
Child and Adolescent Outpatient Psychiatry, and Research.
NHS Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Berkshire, UK. 2001 - 2018:
Paediatric Liaison Psychiatry,
Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) clinic.
Consulting to Social Services Family Centres, Health Visitors, General hospitals.
Teaching, training, mentoring, and appraisal (see Other Activities, below).
- Research and Writing
Project Partner in the Collaborating Centre for Values-Based Practice, St Catherine’s College, Oxford:
Convened Seminar "The Nature of Evidence" November 2016
"An Exploration of the Aesthetic Moment in the everyday Clinical Encounter Using Musical Improvisation as a Model" Collaborating Centre Seminar, October 2018
Past research and publication:
West, A. (1978) Interference and the Minor Triad. The Strad 89(1078), 135-137.
West, A. (1983) Medical Students and the Duty to Question. Ox Med Sch Gazette 34(1), 40.
West, A. (1983) Drop-out: Who is to blame? BMA News Review. Jul 24.
West A. (1986) Personal View. British Medical Journal (BMJ) 293, 754.
West, A. and Taylor, K. (1996) Conjoint Jobshare: Conjugal Bliss. Psychiatric Bulletin 20, 685 – 686.
West, A. (1996) Recording of paternal demographic data in files of in-patients at The Park Hospital. Runner up in the Royal College of Psychiatrists Audit Prize.
West, A. (1998) The Piloting of a Group for the Fathers of Children with Down
Syndrome. Child; Care, Health and Development,24(4), 289–294.
West, A. (1998) Exposing trends in admission rate in individual adolescent diabetics.
Poster presentation, Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Annual Residential Meeting. Bristol.
West, A. (2000) Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and the Space Between: An Interpersonal Perspective. Chapter in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Children and Adolescents (ed. Dwivedi, K. N.), pp 78–96. London. Whurr.
West, A. Bulstrode, C and Hunt, V. (2001) Learning Respect. BMJ 322, 743.
West, A. F. and West, R.R. (2002) Clinical Decision-making: Coping with Uncertainty (Editorial). Postgraduate Medical Journal 78(920), 319 – 321.
West, A. F. and Steinhardt, K. (2003) Containing Anxiety in the Management of Constipation (Commissioned article). Archives of Disease in Childhood 88(12), 1038-1039.
Malmberg, L-E., Stein, A., West, A., Lewis, S., Bethell, K., Barnes, J., Sylva, K., Leach, P. and FCCC. (2007) Parent-Infant interaction. A growth Model approach. Infant Behaviour and Development, 30 (4), 615-630.
Lewis, S. West, A. Stein, A., Malmberg, L-A., Bethell, K., Sylva, K., Barnes, J., Leach, P. and FCCC (2009). A comparison of father-infant interaction between primary and non-primary care giving fathers. Child: Care, Health and Development 35(2),199-207.
West, A., Lewis, S., Ram B., Stein, A. et al. (2009) Why do some fathers become primary caregivers for their infant? A qualitative study. Child: Care, Health and Development 35(2):208-216
Malmberg, L-E., Lewis, S., West, A., Murray, E., Sylva, K., Stein, A., (2016) The influence of mothers’ and fathers’ sensitivity in the first year of life on children’s cognitive outcomes at 18 and 36 months. Child: Care, Health and Development 42(1):1-7
West, A. (2016) Working with Values in Clinical Practice. BACP Children & Young People Jun: 4 - 9
Rapid responses on bmj.com, 2005, 2006, 2012.
Book:
West, A. (2016) Being With and Saying Goodbye: Cultivating Therapeutic Attitude in Professional Practice. London. Karnac.
- Chairing, convening, coordinating, change management:
Non-medical:
1980 – 1981 Secretary, “Young Friends” (Quakers), Cambridge.
Medical:
1983 – 85 Secretary/Chair, Oxford Medical Forum (arranging lectures and discussions on health-care related subjects).
1982 – 85 Student representative on the Curriculum and Examinations Committee, Oxford Medical School.
1991 – 93 Member of Teaching Programme Committee, Wellington, New Zealand.
1996 – 98 Co-Chair of Flexible Trainees in Psychiatry, Oxford Region.
1999 – 2000 Chair of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Higher Trainees, Oxford Region.
2005 - 2006 Berkshire Research Ethics Committee member.
2008 - 2011 Founding Chair ,Consultant Professional Development Group.
2008 - 2016 Higher Training Committee.
2009 – 2015 Regional Representative, Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Royal College of Psychiatrists.
2010 - 2013 Convenor CAMHS academic programme.
2011 - 2014 Chair CAMHS Consultants Management Committee.
Change Management:
1997 Pathways to care in the Berkshire Adolescent Unit. Establishing clear definition of the Case Team Coordinator role.
1997-98 Established monthly clinical/academic meetings between Paediatricians, Child Psychologists and Psychiatrists.
2001 Negotiated amalgamation of psychiatric and clinical psychology components to form liaison service to paediatric wards of a general hospital.
2011 - 2013 Chair CAMHS reconfiguration Quality Assurance Group.
2014 Established NHS CAMHS consultation to independent boarding school.
- Teaching, coaching and other activities
Gap Year and summers 1977 - 1982
1977 – 78 English language teaching, Institution Saint Joseph, Caen, France.
1980, ‘81, ‘82 English language teaching and recreational activities in a Bell’s international summer school. Shropshire, UK.
Summers ‘81,’82 Children’s Activities Leader (voluntary). Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Professional
Trainer, Oxford Deanery Higher Training Programme in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Educational and Clinical Supervisor for General and Child and Adolescent psychiatrists.
Mentor for new consultants: Thames Valley and Wessex Leadership Academy.
Consultant medical appraiser for purposes of revalidation.
ILM Coaching 2018
Musical
I built my violin in 1980 and play regularly in a string quartet, with friends and family, and with Oxford Improvisers.
