NHS70 special: 60 seconds with Ioannis Goutos
How long have you worked here?
My employment at Barts Health NHS Trust started in January 2017 as an Honorary Plastic Surgery and Burns Consultant. This clinical post complements my academic role at Queen Mary University of London as the course lead for the Masters Degree in Burn Care.
What attracted you to the job?
I find being part of my patients’ journey towards healing a very humbling privilege. Furthermore, setting up this brand new service for the NHS is an immense challenge and opportunity for a consultant surgeon with a passion for burn care.
What does your job involve?
My duties revolve around spearheading the development of the Barts Health burn service to provide high quality, tailored care to patients in our catchment area. This involves running outpatient clinics, mentoring junior staff in burn injury management, organising outreach events within the primary care setting as well as preparing the ground for the future evolution of our burn service.
What do you like most about your job?
I find interacting with my patients very rewarding and thoroughly enjoy being able to make a significant impact upon their lives. Furthermore, being part of an international, dynamic, and cohesive burn care team makes my role particularly enticing.
In what way does what you do help patients?
It provides cutting edge, personalised burn care closer to home for the East London population.
What’s your proudest achievement?
I feel my proudest achievement is yet to come and I am confident it will materialise in the context of the evolving Barts Health burn service.
What made you set up the clinic?
I am passionate about providing high quality burn care to our patients by incorporating the knowledge and clinical skills I have acquired throughout my career; furthermore, setting up the burns facility at Whitechapel has been a longstanding objective of the London and Southeast Burn network. I believe my longstanding commitment to burns combined with the concurrent strategic aims of the network have created the ideal background for the successful operationalisation of the service.
What has been your biggest challenge?
One of the biggest challenges in the current NHS climate relates to resource limitations and clearly this has to be taken into account in the operationalisation of the burn service initiative. The entirety of the project team strives to make sensible and cost-effective choices in service provision arrangements and has been particularly innovative when it come to capitalising on available opportunities to overcome these challenges.
What one thing would make Barts Health a better place in which to work and be cared for?
More staff and resources to empower the evolution of services through innovation and ultimately enhance the overall patient experience.
How would you spend an ideal day off?
My ideal day off would involve hosting an ethnic dinner party with my closest friends and family.
Tell us something surprising about yourself:
I took a year out of civilian life in 2013-4 and served in the Greek Armed Forces as a medical platoon leader for the Athens parachutist division during the Olympic Games.