NEXT GEN NABS: RAJ PATEL

NEXT GEN NABS: RAJ PATEL

What role(s) do you hold at the moment?

Deputy Medical Director of Primary Care, NHS England and NHS Improvement, GP partner in The Brooke Surgery, Hyde, Greater Manchester. Member of General Medical Council (GMC), Member of BBC Children in Need Committee for the North.

What brings you the most joy at work?

Being retirement age – allows me to say what I think and make “career limiting” comments without worrying.

Raj Patel
@Dr_Raj_Patel

What is your biggest challenge?

Reaching items on the top shelf of supermarkets and keeping everyone happy.

What’s the best leadership/career advice that you’ve ever recieved?

Listen to understand, to really understand, to really really understand the views of people who disagree with you and don’t stop listening until your opponent agrees that you understand their perspective. We usually listen to prepare a reply and not necessarily to understand. Easy to say, hard to do

Who do you look up to? 

an McCrae, the much older chair of my primary care trust when I was early in my leadership journey who gave me the advice above, but it is a clear message in Covey’s seven habits. Now I am close to retirement, I find myself with a role model 20 years younger than me: Nikki Kanani who I initially cautioned for “flying too low” in a senior strategic role. I now admire her style of helicopter leadership where she is able to fly high and then land amongst frontline clinicians, make a personal judgment and then head back to the stratosphere to understand how it all fits strategically…..and she can genuinely multitask.

What has been the proudest moment of your career to date?

Getting into medical school after re-sitting my A-levels. A long time ago, but very few kids from my rough school went to university let alone medical school especially from a BAME background. Collecting my MBE from Her Majesty at Buck House in 2019 wasn’t too bad either.

What have you learned about yourself in lockdown?

I am crap at multitasking. I can’t do zoom / MS team meetings, check my email, WhatsApp, social media, watch Netflix, cook dinner and do my online shopping all at the same time. Despite being a champion for online consulting, I have discovered that I really miss seeing my patients face to face

What are you reading at the moment?……and (no judgement) the last film you watched..

“Getting Things Done” by David Allen, a book on time management I started to read in 2001. I still haven’t finished it. Film: Deadpool and Deadpool 2 featuring a quick witted, foul mouthed, badly behaved anti-superhero whose heart is in the right place. Reminds me of a lot of doctors and nurses I have worked with.

NEXT GEN NABS: RAMMYA MATHEW

NEXT GEN NABS: RAMMYA MATHEW

What role(s) do you hold at the moment?

Just the two, and that feels like plenty at the moment. I’m first and foremost a GP. I also lead a regional quality improvement team. 

Since the pandemic, I’ve been doing whatever needs doing though – including 111 telephone triage and now working in a primary care ‘hot service’, seeing and assessing patients with suspected covid-19.

Rammaya Matthew
@RammyaMathew

What brings you the most joy at work?

I get most joy in being part of a brilliant team. I’ve always been lucky to have colleagues that I can learn from and be inspired by.

What is your biggest challenge?

The quality improvement work gives me great joy, but we are dealing with complex problems and big system change. This means things don’t always go to plan, so it requires resilience and an acceptance that it’s okay to not always ‘succeed’.

What’s the best leadership/career advice you’ve ever recieved?

Be yourself!!

Who do you look up to?

When I was doing my academic GP training, I met Helen Stokes Lampard and was so impressed by her. She was so personable, deeply empathetic and wasn’t afraid of sharing aspects of her personal life and showing her vulnerability. I was not at all surprised when she was elected as Chair of the College some years later.

What would you like to achieve by the end of your career?

I just want to have enjoyed myself, feel like I’ve put my talents to use and to have made good friendships along the way..

What have you learned about yourself in lockdown?

That family is the most important thing to me – seeing my little boy at the end of a long or upsetting day, always seems to make it all better.

What are you reading at the moment? ……and (no judgement) the last film you watched..

The tattooist of Auschwitz. Not a film but watched ‘Unorthodox’ on Netflix, which was just brilliant, so had to share. 

NEXT GEN NABS: SIMON GREGORY

NEXT GEN NABS: SIMON GREGORY

What role(s) do you hold at the moment?

Deputy Medical Director, Primary and Integrated Care, Health Education England; Sessional GP, King Edward Road Surgery, Northampton; RCGP Council Trustee and Chair of Committee on Medical Ethics.

What brings you the most joy at work?

Interactions with others, whether that is patients, staff colleagues or trainees. I love helping people to be the best that they can be.

@SimonDGregory

What is your biggest challenge?

Meeting the increasing GP recruitment targets whilst continuing to reform GP Specialty Training. We have some really exciting changes coming.

What’s the best leadership/career advice you’ve ever recieved?

“Keep your integrity and others will come back to you in the end.”

Who have your role models been?

I’d like to highlight 3 (though there have been many more and I hope that no one will be upset): David Tweddle – Mr. Tweddle was my form teacher at school. He believed that I could become a doctor and supported me but also, because he was such a generous, kind and gentle man.

Catti Moss – Catti was my GP Trainer. She was a brilliant trainer and a great and much-loved GP. In my first tutorial she shared that my training would be about the art of being a GP. We didn’t do too many clinical tutorials as we’d both read books and then spend a tutorial recalling our reading.

Derek Gallen – Derek gave me my first job in healthcare education, he taught me the importance of professionalising what we do and also of spending time looking after staff and colleagues.

What has been the proudest moment of your career to date?

Sorry, I know that people will groan, but, it was getting my MRCGP. I wanted to be a GP from age 11 so felt I had reached the peak of Everest. But, also, as I see the College as important to support the values and the unique nature of our specialty. Also as I was lucky to live to receive it as I get so stressed by exam’s that after the oral exams in the Long Room at 14 Princes Gate I walked out as straight into the traffic and I have no idea how the black cab stopped; but I did learn some new words from him.

What have you learned about yourself in lockdown?

COVID-19 has made me focus on our mortality and the importance of time with and valuing family and friends. I have a renewed sense of what is important to me, and more importantly, what is not.

What are you reading at the moment? ……and (no judgement) the last film you watched..

I always have 2 books on the go, one fiction and one non-fiction. The current two are Double Agent by Tom Bradbury and Invisible Women: Exposing data bias in a world designed for men. The last film I watched was Bombshell.

NEXT GEN NABS: SONALI KINRA

NEXT GEN NABS: SONALI KINRA

What role(s) do you hold at the moment?

I was a GP Partner in Nottingham for the last 8 years and finally decided to call time on the long distance relationship with my husband who is a surgeon and moved to London in January 2020.

I am now a Salaried GP in London while I continue in my role as GP Retention lead for Nottingham & Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System.

What brings you the most joy at work?

Being a care home GP brought me the most joy at work. Whilst in Nottingham I had the responsibility to look after the residents in a 64 bed residential care home. I cherished the time with the patients, care home staff and multidisciplinary teams delivering high quality care as a team. If you are interested in reading more about it I wrote a blog for British Geriatric Society – ‘ Care Home GP- A challenge that became an opportunity to innovate’.

I moved to London just before the COVID pandemic struck and since then led the COVID preparation and response within the practice for the past 4 months. I am driven by change management processes and have been able to lead and deliver on six change management processes including daily huddles, total triage, introducing e-consult to name a few. These processes are fully embedded in practice and to see it enhance patient experience and staff well-being is most fulfilling.

What is your biggest challenge?

As GP Retention Lead my biggest challenge is to ensure that the voices of those who are marginalised are truly represented and heard. Whether this has been about shining the light on the richness of thought and experience of Mid –Career GPs, those returning to work after maternity/caring responsibility, the diversity of BAME workforce and our unsung heroes General Practice Nursing. My other personal challenge is to learn sometimes to curtail my enthusiasm. My professional and personal life ripples through with no boundaries which can be enriching yet exhausting at times.

Who do you look up to? 

Growing up my mother has been a role model for us. My mother was a teacher in a University College in India. She balanced raising three children with her professional role and never once complained about it. I guess it’s hard to name just one person as I would hope to imbibe different skills from different people. Amitabh Bachchan, the BBC actor of the millennium for his dynamic persona /oratory skills, Indira Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo for her leadership, Atul Gawande, Surgeon, Public health advocate for his ability to unite the professional world with his writings on empathy, the humility of Samantha Jones, the energy within Bob Klaber and last but not the least the ever personable Nikki Kanani.

What would you like to achieve by the end of your career?

It is important to me that I provide the best care to my patients and am invested in staff wellbeing. I would like to end marginalisation of groups and reduce the injustices faced across the population and workforce. This may seem like a tall order but I remain hopeful.

What have you learned about yourself in lockdown?

Practice makes perfect. No place for shortcuts! I am getting better at planks. I was really bad at Scrabble. My sisters have constantly been beating me on the game. Soon the tide may turn. People energise me and emotional connection keeps me grounded.

What are you reading at the moment?……and (no judgement) the last film you watched..

The online medium has certainly shortened my attention span. Conscious of this, I have set myself an achievable target of reading poetry every night from the book ‘Poem for every night of the year’ by Allie Esiri. This is a brilliant collection of English poetry. Reading this helps me find reason and stay calm. I haven’t been able to watch movies lately but thanks to Netflix and Amazon Prime and the numerous drama series to view. I recently completed watching an English language Indian drama series called ‘Made in Heaven’ directed by Zoya Akhtar. She is a celebrated, contemporary film director in Asia. This is an enlightening nine part series cleverly navigating the vagaries/complexities of human relationships seen through prism of grandiose Indian weddings.