The Most Northerly Doctor in Britain

A week before we left to travel north, in order to prepare myself for being on a Scottish Island I thought, let’s cycle The Hebridean Way.  A 220 mile bike ride over 5 days: 10 islands, 6 causeways and 2 ferries.  I checked the weather forecast - no storms predicted so we booked it all at the last minute (apparently it’s more normal to plan this trip a good few months in advance due to sparsity of accommodation) so with a lot of naivety and luck we’ve had the most incredible 5 days of cycling. We stayed in a variety of places including a hostel which turned out to be a converted old people’s home (best nights sleep all week 😂) and a wooden grass hut.  The sun shone. We ate lots of cake and had some amazing coffee. We saw plenty of wildlife, including an otter, a white tailed sea eagle and dolphins. In summary it’s quite the most beautiful place I have ever visited.  And also a very quick way to switch off from the stresses of being a GP in 2023.  As this is a m...

Only a month to go until I leave to head North 😬 As part of my preparation for the remote single handed GP sabbatical role it was recommended that having some recent A&E experience would be helpful.  Gulp.  The last time I worked in A&E was in the ‘90s as a very green SHO just 18 months out of medical school. Whilst I loved the medicine, if you’ve seen or read “This is Going to Hurt” by the talented Adam Kay you’ll have an idea of where I’m coming from. Seven consecutive 12 hour night shifts where you were the only doctor in the department serving an entire county, was the norm. You had a consultant at home on the end of a phone. At times I found it terrifying and I think it probably traumatised my younger self. So I can’t tell you how different my recent experience of shadowing a Consultant in the local A&E department has been. This took some setting up, I naively assumed I could just pitch up having got the go ahead from the Medical Director of the department. N...

Jurassic coast - best seen from a sea kayak or bike…. Some of my more fun “day off” activities

I’m not sure if anyone is familiar with Type 1 and Type 2 Fun. If you’re not, it’s a classification of fun based on whether you actually enjoy what you’re doing at the time (Type 1) or only when you look back on it, seems fun with good memories (Type 2). I have invented a third category (Type 3) which was neither fun at the time or afterwards (The 138 mile Dragon Ride cycle event comes to mind 😱). In preparation for my sabbatical as a remote GP on Unst, one of the requirements is completion of the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Course, run by BASICS (British Association for Immediate Care)  https://www.basics.org.uk/ So off I went to stay in a cute Airbnb in Luton last week, for 3 days of training. It was amazing and I recommend it to anyone who works in the pre-hospital setting. However, the last time I did anything more than an annual BLS update was in 1997 when I did an ATLS course whilst working in A&E as a junior Dr. The other attendees included anaesthetic and A&E SpRs,...

“Why don’t you do a sabbatical?” she said.  It started over a glass of wine with my old University friend, Meinir. We met in 1990 at Sheffield University Medical School and have been friends ever since. We’ve had many glasses of wine together.  Me in my comfort zone at work  It was September 2022, the country was coming out of the Covid pandemic and General Practice felt like an exhausting place to be.  I was facing another 10 years of a job I wasn’t sure was for me the way it was going, but felt too scared to make a change. It was comfortable. I’m a partner at Wareham Surgery (isn’t the building lovely 😂 - we are planning new premises btw). A well lead, well staffed practice in a beautiful part of the country.  I live in a stunning village on the Jurassic Coast, my kids have finished Uni, home life is settled.  Comfortable.  I felt a need to get out of my comfort zone and challenge myself professionally. The seeds were sewn during my time in Sheffiel...