A Wonderful Long Weekend in Lahore by Charlie Stockton-Powdrell
I was invited to join a delegation heading to Lahore in Pakistan as part of the International Strategic Partnerships Fund from the University of Manchester, leaving on 1st January 2025. The award is led by Mustafa Ali with support from Dr Sabine Van der Veer, and the aim is to translate and advance the use of the Manchester Digital Pain Manikin with a South Asian population in Pakistan, in collaboration with colleagues from Shalimar Health Science Centre and Shalimar Hospital.
My role was to provide some capacity building and capability training over 2 days, covering Agile Software Development and Accessibility, Research Project Management in Digital Health, and Team Research Principles and Applications to people working in various roles in digital health.
From the moment we landed, the welcome was incredible. Our collaborators from Shalimar Health Science Centre greeted us warmly at the airport and escorted us to the hotel – despite the early start (we landed at 5am) and the thickest fog I have ever seen. The journey from the airport to the hotel was tense, and I am grateful for our experienced and careful taxi driver!
The workshop participants were made up of Software Developers, Clinicians, Academics, Project Managers, Researchers, PhD Students and Senior Hospital Management – the diversity of roles, skills and career stages in the room was wonderful to see.
The group was full of enthusiasm and curiosity, and even though there was a variety of levels of experience and seniority, everyone worked very well together and was eager to learn. The agile software development processes were familiar to some of the group, who have experience of working in digital health. However, some of the research specific aspects, especially patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) was a new concept for this group, and they wanted to learn more about how they can apply this new knowledge. I modified the material for day 2 in order to explore this further with the participants, and help them understand how to implement some of the learning within their research.
The Team Research session was also delivered on the second day. By the afternoon, people were starting to flag a little (it was a Saturday afternoon, so I was eating into their weekend!). But the enthusiasm for some different and novel approaches to collaborative team working continued, as did the questions. We covered Team Research Principles and Team Composition, Team Visioning and Ways of Working, Navigating Conflict, Network Mapping, and Team Building. Network Mapping was a highlight as some of the early career participants started to think about ways of expanding their existing network – including connecting with others in the room. There was also a ‘Eureka moment’ from a very experienced Neurosurgeon who shared that their current network consisted largely of other Neurosurgeons, but following the training, they would start to connect more with others from different disciplines.
The Team Building module is often the most fun to deliver and this was no exception. We completed a competitive spaghetti and marshmallow tower construction task in 4 separate teams, which essentially resulted in 4 piles of broken spaghetti at the end, despite careful planning and enthusiasm to succeed! However, that did not dampen anyone’s spirits at all. In fact, this was one of the most valuable modules to deliver, as people continued to talk about it the following day, saying how much they had learned from it about team working, planning, best use of resources, understanding skills and allocating roles and responsibilities. This was also shared with the Chief of the Shalimar Hospital during a lunch we were invited to the following day.
We finished the trip with a guided walking tour of the city thanks to our wonderful hosts. We even managed to be interviewed by a national TV channel asking about our experience of the new walking tour, as well as being asked by some local people if they could have their photo taken with us!
The Wonderful Long Weekend in Lahore was an amazing experience, and a great way to start 2025. The people of Pakistan gave us such a warm welcome and were so grateful to us for being there and sharing our knowledge. I felt truly humbled and will cherish this opportunity which was a real privilege, and hopefully the start of some longer term collaborations!