Wednesday 2 July 2014

Town Mouse / Country Mouse


I am Debbie Miller , a GP Educational Supervisor at Nairn.

Rachel Hopkins is an experienced GP who has her own practice in Central London. She wanted a change and agreed to come up to the Highlands for 4 months to be my locum, a sort of "Town Mouse ,Country Mouse" thing.....except the Country Mouse headed off to the sun in Saudi Arabia (that's another story!)
I thought that it would be interesting to get some feedback from Rachel so she kindly agreed to jot something down about her experience and she has given permission for it to be posted on this blog.

"The cows looked mournfully out of the byre at me as I picked my way across the muddy farmyard to the cottage for a home visit. It had been tricky finding the right farm with no sign of a name anywhere- fortunately I'd been able to pull in and ring the farmer for directions. The environment was totally different to my usual work as an inner city GP in London, but the experience of struggling to locate a visit and ringing for directions was very familiar. Not very used to isolated farms in London, but maze-like housing estates. Finding home visits was like most of my experience spending my sabbatical from London working as a locum in Nairn, Highlands, both strikingly different but at the same time very familiar.