Welcome back to my monthly column exploring my foray into primary care from the safer, more known world of the ambulance!
This month, a lot of things have changed. As you'll recall, last month, the differences in culture, patient interaction and work style were affecting me and I definitely appreciated having this column as an outlet through which to explore and discuss this. I was also in need of a small break, and took this in the form of a walking holiday with my best friend! Blisters abounded, but also, I had some distance (literally!) to take stock of my position and how rewarding it is to be able to help patients in this setting.
However, I returned back to work to some unfortunate news. The GP practice felt that they were unable to continue my contract as I was still at the stage of liaising frequently with colleagues to discuss cases and management plans. In my mind, while still relatively new, this is a way to work that promotes both patient safety and multidisciplinary cohesion. However, the practice decided that they required a practitioner who was already fully autonomous in primary care, and bid me farewell so that they could find this person.
Having applied and been accepted to a First Contact Practitioner programme on their behest (and for which I was very excited!), I now had to forfeit this opportunity as my clinical context was not present. My current situation finds me attempting to re-enter the primary care world in the hopes to continue gaining and building upon my knowledge and experience.
During my downtime though, I have started being more active in furthering my learning. The time I previously dedicated to the requirements of that opportunity was freed up, allowing me to redirect it towards journal reading, and the completion of many online modules, webinars and reflections. I had a great bunch of learning on my to-do list, and I am making my way through it apace! I am even exploring online CPD to catch up on past live learning that I had missed.
Additionally, I heard back from the advanced assessment course that I did from October to December last year, and I was absolutely chuffed to hear that I got an overall score of 87% on my first ever piece of level 7 writing. I also had an additional request from the course leader to use this as an example essay for future cohorts! So although I am currently looking to resume my career practically, it was a huge motivation and confidence boost to hear that, education wise, I am able to manage this type of role.
Thanks so much to those of you who have followed my journey thus far. I am not sure at this stage what opportunities will come my way or whether my column will continue, but I will be happy to keep you up to date with the next stage in my primary care journey—whatever and whenever that will be!