Working Life: After 15 years as a practising GP, it’s difficult to get used to a desk job

Dr Sarah Fitzgibbon, GP and primary care clinical advisor with CervicalCheck, National Screening Service

Mon, 29 Nov, 2021 - 06:05

Catherine Shanahan

7.30am

After years of being on-call and then having small children, I savour my lie-in. Following a frenzied morning of breakfasts and lost pencil cases, my three children and husband generally cycle to school/office while I get ready for work.

9am

After 15 years as a practising GP, it’s difficult to get used to a ‘desk job’. I am adapting, however and I meet with the primary care operations team in CervicalCheck to discuss clinical queries from GPs and nurses related to sample taking in the community.

11am

I correspond with professionals involved in screening here and in other countries to develop our education strategy. It’s vital that we continue to inform and educate doctors, nurses and the public about the benefits and limitations of screening.

12 noon

I work with the other clinical advisors and the clinical director to organise a webinar for GPs and practice nurses to keep them up-to-date and hear their feedback. This includes the recent LGBT+ cervical screening study. It found that while the majority of LGBT participants said they had positive experiences of cervical screening, only about two thirds (or 66%) attended regularly. This compares to 80% attendance by the general population. We’re now working on its recommendations.

1pm

Lunch is often last night’s dinner while catching up on non-CervicalCheck emails. I’m the founder of the Women in Medicine in Ireland Network, and every Sunday, we run a social media tribute to a different female doctor or medical student in Ireland under the hashtag #SundayWiMIN. I love researching all the achievements of great women, including Olympians, mountaineers and humanitarians.

3pm

During a meeting, I have to take a call from a social worker relating to a patient. While I am working in my GP practice two days a week, urgent issues often arise on my ‘days off’.

6pm

The house becomes busy as the troops arrive home. Dinner, football training and homework feature.

8pm

Evenings often includes an ICGP webinar or a meeting of the patient liaison group of which I am a member. Then it’s an episode of the current Netflix addiction and a few pages of the next book in my to-be-read pile.