I received a complaint the other day mentioning that I’d seen the patient in a local supermarket and had raised my voice at her (over the bananas, I presume), telling her off for missing an appointment. There were two things here that rang alarm bells. Firstly, I’d never heard of this patient, and we all…

I’m revelling at the moment, revelling in the praise and recognition. Patients everywhere, so happy with the roll-out of vaccines. Sometimes crying with happiness. Patients treating us like heroes. I think I should be feeling sickly about it; I should be being modest. I should be saying, “It’s nothing; you’re our patients. We’re here for…

My stomach lurched last weekend as I prepared myself for ‘getting back to work’. Although I’d actually only had one day off over the holidays, there was a feeling in the pit of my stomach as if I’d chewed up a disposable mask and it was sitting there, churning. In a lame attempt to better…

On the first day of Christmas My receptionist sent to me A sick note as she was poorly. On the second day of Christmas My practice nurse sent to me Two patient tasks, And a sick note as she was poorly. On the third day of Christmas My healthcare worker sent to me Three new…

I have many, many moments during the day when staff members come in to see me, ring me or just tell me as I’m walking down the corridor something that makes me think internally, ‘You’re telling me this why?!’ Externally, of course, I smile and politely try and point them, very nicely, in the direction of: ‘You could really manage to…

On a Saturday morning, I like to lie in until, oooooh, at least 7.30. I take this time to catch up on ‘life’. By that, I mean scrolling through Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. A bit of escapism. Sadly, as I was scrolling recently, I came across a post about the local GP surgery on one…

It’s my appraisal tomorrow. As usual I’ve left everything until the last minute. And as usual one of the items on my “I must do better next year” list is “filling in my training and reflections throughout the year”. This year has been… a challenge… and there’s more and worse to come. I often get…