For Dr Anita Rose, winning the NR Times Lifetime Achievement award was a long time coming.
Over the course of a 30-year career, she has excelled as clinical director of Cognivate, built a caseload of complex brain injury clients, published multiple books and supported numerous charities.
We chatted with Anita over Zoom to gain some insight into the challenges of working in brain injury rehab and how she manages to juggle so many competing commitments.
We begin where much of Anita’s daily work begins: with the gap between what the public believes about brain injury and what patients actually live with.
“Some of the major misconceptions are around recovery and what it actually means,” she says.
“Particularly if somebody has had a mild to moderate brain injury, they don’t always appear to be particularly affected and therefore people assume they should be able to get back to work and do everything.”
The other extreme is equally damaging.
Families, driven by genuine care, can become so protective that they inadvertently prevent a patient from attempting the things they are still capable of, Anita says.
Meanwhile, social media paints a misleading picture of what recovery looks like.
Dr Anita Rose
“You get professionals who’ve had a massive brain injury and are suddenly back to doing whatever they were doing before,” Anita says.
“So people think everyone should be like that.”
Anita’s writing enables her to correct some of these misperceptions.
Alongside her clinical work, she has contributed to a brain injury book series published by Routledge, with two further titles currently in progress.
Some of her work has been co-created with clients, helping them tell their own stories and raise public awareness.
Her NR Times articles take a similar spirit of accessibility.
She recalls a recent piece built around the metaphor of a chocolate chip cookie to explain interdisciplinary team working.
The feature resonated with many people working in the field.
Anita explains: “I’ve had numerous emails from people saying things like, ‘thanks for actually saying that an OT, SLT or physio is vitally important’.
“It helped people recognise what they were already doing.”
This relentless commitment to work and supporting others of course takes its toll, which is why Anita is evangelical about self-care, both for herself and the clinicians she manages.
She took up golf a year ago, enjoys regular nature walks, belongs to a church community and spends time with her grandchildren.
All these activities help her to unwind and recover, not only supporting her own wellbeing but ensuring that she is at her best with her clients too.
Anita says: “You are carrying people’s lives and holding them.
“So I make sure I have time for myself, even if that’s just going for a walk or a run, something that just shuts me off.”
As clinical director of Cognivate, Anita holds herself to the same standard she expects of her team, though she is candid about the contradiction involved.
She says: “I always joke with everyone I manage: do what feels right, not what I do, because I know I’m a workaholic and a bit of a perfectionist!”
What she does insist upon, however, is that staff resist any culture of clinical rigidity.
“We’re working with clients that don’t come in a neat little package,” Anita says.
“So I encourage clinicians to be confident in bringing themselves to their work too, knowing that support is there if they need it.”
For clinicians feeling daunted by leadership, writing or juggling the two, Anita’s advice is straight forward.
“Just go for it. Have a go,” she says.
Anita traces her own trajectory back to a senior clinician who saw potential in her early in her career and supported her as a potential successor.
She didn’t take his precise job when he retired, but the belief behind the offer changed the course of her career.
Her philosophy now is to pass that on at scale.
“I’ve got colleagues I invest in, not just where I work, but across the world,” Anita says.
“And my ethos is: Please invest what I’m giving to you in someone else.
“That’s how you learn management, how you learn dealing with conflict and with people.
“And you are then creating a legacy for the population you’re working with.”
As the Patron of Mutual Support (the Armed Forces MS Charity) she suggests voluntary roles with charitable organisations as a way to build strategic confidence without the pressure of formal leadership.
Anita adds: “Know that you’ve got the skills.
“You wouldn’t be where you are in your career if you hadn’t.”
