UCL Centre for Neurorehabilitation seminar: Professor Diane Playford

Dilemmas in clinical practice can arise when clinicians face situations where they must choose between competing ethical principles, values, or responsibilities. These dilemmas are common in rehabilitation due to the complexity of patient needs, varying stakeholder expectations, and resource limitations. In this talk I will consider how the legal frameworks have changed over the last 25 years and how this affects the way we consider complex problems affecting people receiving rehabilitation.  I will illustrate this with some fictional case histories using different conceptual frameworks to consider these complex and often challenging issues.

Diane qualified in 1984 and then trained in neurology with a view to working in the field of neurological rehabilitation. She trained at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and spent a year working as lecturer in neurological rehabilitation at the Finchley Hospital. Her first consultant post was in rehabilitation medicine in a level 2 unit in Derby, with a senior lecturer post at the University of Nottingham. She returned to Queen Square as consultant and senior lecturer in 2000, and then in 2015 went to the University of Warwick as Professor of Neurological Rehabilitation and held a consultant post at the Central England Rehabilitation Unit. Over the last few years she has worked at the Regional Hyperacute Rehabilitation Unit at Northwick Park. Her research has focussed on supporting patient autonomy through goal setting, vocational rehabilitation, and while Director of Research at the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, profound brain injury. This varied career has been enormously interesting and provided a lot of opportunities for sleepless nights which form the basis of this talk.

Please join us after the event for refreshments and networking.