“More work is being pushed into the community … which is putting stress and pressure on GPs at a time when we are more regulated than we’ve ever been”


wanted to do more. I wanted to be teaching and doing research as well as the clinical stuff so I decided to move across to public health.” But to do public health, she was told, she needed


UL YEAR


and practice teams due to workload, regulations and lack of investment, these are issues she understands intimately. “I absolutely do,” she says. “Our practice is merging to


survive. We’ve struggled to get partners and we’re not able to bid for new work or innovation because we are regarded as too small. When I speak about these things they are from the heart, because I am living it.”


COMING HOME If one were plotting a route to become Chair of the RCGP, you would hardly set off from where Stokes-Lampard began. For starters, she never planned to go into medicine at all, not considering herself “bright enough”. But following a good set of exam results at her comprehensive in South Wales, her expectations rose. Medicine it was – but after qualifying at St George’s in London, she then opted, not for general practice, but for obstetrics and gynaecology. It was only later, when her career progression had


stalled somewhat, due to a surplus of obstetrics and gynaecology trainees, that she considered a change. “Truth be told I was getting a bit frustrated,” she says, “probably because I was a bit stuck at a certain training level. I


some experience as a GP. At that point she sought advice from Dr Steve Field, who, coincidentally, would go on to become RCGP Chair himself. “He encouraged me to apply for an academic GP job and within months of starting in my training practice I realised I’d come home.” It was, she says, a Damascene conversion. “I realised that this was actually what I’d always wanted to do: the continuity of care, the wide-ranging nature of practice, the intellectual challenge and the opportunities to do research and teaching. It just ticked all the boxes for me.” Looking at her subsequent career, what sticks out a mile is her inclination, and ability, to wear several hats at once. When she finished her GP training in Birmingham, for example, she became a part-time principal at the Lichfield practice, while also working as an academic at the University of Birmingham. And as her academic career flourished – becoming, among other things, interim head of the Department of Primary Care, head of Academic Community-Based Medicine Teaching, and clinical director of the Primary Care Clinical Research and Trials Unit – there were always other hats too: a working party here, a personnel group there, at the RCGP locally and nationally, and as a mentor for Doctors in Difficulty. When I bring it up, she points out that the “many hats” habit started long before this. “I have always wanted to improve my working environment and that of my colleagues,” she says. “When I was in my sixth form college I set up a branch of the NUS. When I was in medical school, I was President of the Student Union. When I was a trainee GP I got involved as a trainee rep with the College.” But despite her many roles within the RCGP over the


years, combined with her experience and success, she “never in a million years” thought it would lead to being Chair. “I’d always seen myself as a kind of backroom influencer, the sort of person who organises things quietly to make it run better, which is why I was Treasurer. It was only seeing it up close that I started to realise my own passion and that perhaps I did have the ability.” Now, as she approaches her first anniversary in the role, I ask, with all the challenges faced by the profession in the coming years, what does the future hold? “Times are really tough,” she replies. “But what I want – hope – is to restore pride to our profession and joy to the consultation. I want GPs to have the time to care for their patients so that general practice becomes, once again, the medical profession of choice where GPs can enjoy working for their entire careers.”


Adam Campbell is a freelance writer and regular contributor to MDDUS publications.


MDDUS INSIGHT / 11


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