PETERCULTER MEDICAL PRACTICE
DR SUSAN LEE, who hasbeen working 3 sessions a week with the practice, goes off on maternity leave in June and we all wish her well with the further addition to her family. Continuing the maternity theme, our breeding oystercatchers have returned to the roof of the health centre again!
You may be aware of the city-wide Protected Learning Time scheme whereby GP practices close for an afternoon of education and training activities on the second Wednesday of each month (except January, July, August and December). The practice team have been finding these useful especially in terms of having dedicated time for personal and team development.
The kinds of activities, which we have undertaken, include
• basic life support training for practice admin staff,
• self defence training for dealing with aggression/violence,
• resuscitation training update for GPs and nurses,
• consultation skills review for GPs and • various updates on clinical topics. Future topics include an update session on palliative care issues. We are in no doubt that these sessions are valuable in helping us maintain existing skills and learn new ones as appropriate. During these training afternoons, urgent medical contact is via NHS 24 on 08454-242424, and there are emergency GPs working to accommodate any consultations required (similar to the out-of-hours GMED set-up).
Our GP registrar, Dr Thompson, will shortly be sitting his exams (a pretty intensive affair with written papers and an oral assessment) so good luck to him! Dr Thompson has particular interests in communication and IT (computers etc) and will probably develop these further in his future general practice career.
Thanks to all who donated to the Red Nose Day collection at the surgery, which raised £40 for charity. The staff here are frequently looking for opportunities to collect for various topical appeals and charities. Recently a sponsored slimming raised £115 for the Asian Tsunami fund, although I am reliably informed that several `pounds' of a different sort were also raised thus resulting in a bigger donation as a forfeit (sorry girls, you did say I could print this, didn't you?). Well done!
Best wishes
Dr Douglas Harris