Like many highly skilled professions, a career in general practice can be a journey with obstacles to overcome, barriers to navigate and choices to make. NASGP member Tina Sumner describes how she came to be working as a GP locum and how NASGP has helped her in that journey.
Like most GPs, I entered medical school ‘wanting to help people’. I was the first of our family to go to university, so there was no-one in the background advising me on what to really expect throughout training and whilst a fledgling in hospital. I entered general practice after my junior house officer jobs, as I loved every department I had encountered, but wanted continuity, and something of everything. I have never regretted my decision.
As my GP VTS training entered its final months, and with my first baby on the way, I was asked to join the partnership of the course organiser. The surgery was close to my home, in a practice with 2 excellent doctors, so I jumped at the chance and became a partner at the stroke of midnight as we entered a new millennium in January 2000.