Dr Harpreet Sehmi MRCGP, GP partner at Eskdaill Medical Centre, Kettering, gave a talk to members of Form 6 DocSoc about becoming a general practitioner. She spoke about the training involved, her typical working day, the challenges faced in general practice and the reasons why she finds her job worthwhile.
Dr Sehmi trained at Nottingham, and then completed her foundation posts in Leicester Hospitals, before continuing her training in Kettering. She is now a GP partner at Eskdaill Medical Practice, Kettering. The pupils were certainly more interested in General Practice after they realised the length of training was far shorter than for many other medical specialisms!
The pupils learned what the working day pre-Covid was like, with a busy schedule involving home visits and face-to-face meetings, and Dr Sehmi then contrasted this with an insight into how things have changed post-Covid. She reflected on the shift to telephone or video consultations and the sudden decrease in face-to-face meetings and speculated that perhaps the changes would be for the long-term.
After talking about the set-up of a practice and different specialties within a GP Practice, Dr Sehmi spoke about some of the challenges she faces working as a GP. One of the issues she mentioned was the limited appointments available and how patients who may not necessarily need to see the GP can take up the spaces of those with more serious conditions. She also spoke about the short appointments, a mere 10 minutes, and the challenge of managing to sort out a medical issue in such a short time. However, she also discussed about what made her job worthwhile.
Form 6 pupil Annie Dudin said, “Dr Sehmi really radiated a passion for her job; the way she spoke about the sense of community around her role, and the satisfaction that comes with following patients through their treatment, and perhaps even through their lives. It definitely made me consider becoming a GP more seriously than I had done in the past, simply because she really seemed to love her job.”
Listeners to the online meeting found it extremely informative to examine the thought process behind treating patients. All the pupils were very grateful to Dr Sehmi for giving up her time in an impossibly busy schedule to talk to them and came out of the meeting knowing far more than they did before the session.
Report by Annie Dudin Form 6
