Practising NHS GP

NHS GP Appraiser

Coach at NHS England Y&H region

Mentor GPM Plus

GP Educator Yorkshire and the Humber (former GP Training Programme Director)

 

I have worked as a doctor in the UK NHS for nearly 25 years. I am currently a practising GP in North Yorkshire, and my special interests are mental health, and communicating well.

As well as working as a part time GP, I am a GP Educator, having delivered countless communication skills workshops to undergraduate medical students over my career.

I worked for 17 years as a GP Training Programme Director; mentoring and supporting hundreds of junior doctors through training to become independent primary care clinicians.

I have supported established senior clinicians who are responsible for supervising junior doctors whilst juggling their own busy careers. I have supported doctors in difficulty when they have needed more specific physical, mental, social or emotional support to thrive.

I have a Post Graduate Certificate in Medical Education and in 2016 I became a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, being recognised for my contributions to GP education and training.

I work as a mentor for the GPMPlus programme; supporting newly qualified GPs to navigate life at the start of their careers. I help them to:

• build confidence
• work in teams
• create and maintain professional networks
• become empathic and emotionally intelligent leaders
• make career decisions and transitions
• remain grounded and stay well in really tough and demanding working environments.
• balance work and life and make time for what is important.
• be more mindful of language and behaviour patterns.
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I work as an NHS GP Appraiser, and for 10 years have helped support GPs with their development; helping them navigate personal and professional challenge and change, and facilitating them to make career decisions.

 

Since 2018, I have applied my existing skills as a GP, and fascination with communication to becoming a trained coach.

I have an ILM5 coaching and mentoring qualification. This compliments my 25 years experience of talking to humans as their GP at times when they have been experiencing challenge and change in their lives or felt vulnerable and lacked the resources to reach solutions.

Through developing my coaching and mindfulness practice, I have recognised, first hand, the unique power we create when we hold time and space to think it out aloud, and in our own words.

Giving ourselves long enough to slow it down, keep it simple and get to the end of a train of thought without distraction, is such a rare event these days. Being heard completely, and without judgement, whilst being able to follow a thought to the end is often all we need to get to where we can think and feel better. 

As a GP or a mentor, I may only have a short block of time, there can be a lot of competing distractions, and I may have to jump quickly to offer my solutions or compromises because of limited resources. Obviously sometimes people need my solutions and my professional knowledge and expertise. However, there are times I know and realise that what could work better is my time and attention to help you find your own approaches that work for you and your life. You will begin to look at how you can think better and this can be transformative, creating ripples of success.

As a coach, I can use the luxury of having more time to really hold quality space for you. You will find it much easier to focus and you’ll begin to see your own solutions or work out where you need to go. If we can create the conditions to better attend to your questions, you can quickly reveal more options, think more widely and more creatively.  It might help you remove blocks or barriers to progress, and it will reduce the risk of proceeding straight to frustration or overwhelm.

Time and space to think with me as you coach can keep you as well and healthy as any medicine I can prescribe as a GP!

As part of the training to become a coach, and my continuing professional development, I have experienced the power of coaching on a personal level as I have also been coached and supervised regularly. This has led to me having the confidence to develop and sustain a varied and challenging career portfolio.

After a period of ill health ten years ago, I was forced to evaluate the impact of work on my life as a mum, as a wife, as a friend, as a daughter, as a colleague. I have since made more time to care for myself.  I have even trained as a performance cycling instructor (which was seriously not on my radar in my late 40s!). I have created space and time for my cycling clients using a unique blend of movement, music and mindfulness. I continue to teach weekly indoor cycling classes where the emphasis is on connection, community, self care and feeling positive as well as fitter and stronger into the bargain!