I find it interesting how life as GP and life as a GP trainee has changed so much right in front of me.
When I joined my GP practice in December last year, I started with 30 minute consultations. This was soon reduced to 20 minute consultations. 30 minute consultations were not too bad. But 20 minute consultations were challenging as ST1.
This is what my day was like. I used to reach work at 09:30. We used to have half hour of debrief every day. During debrief, the trainees would discuss complicated cases or cases where we had questions, with a GP.
After the debrief, it was one consultation after another. There was a break of half hour. And we used to have one or two home visits each day.
However, now, things are completely different. Most consultations are over the phone. Out of five days, I have face-to-face consultations only one day a week. The other four days I get phone consultations. I don’t feel the pressure of 20 minute consultations anymore. Number of home visits are also down.
Things might change again once the pandemic ends. But things may never go back to how they were before the pandemic. Telephone consultations are here to stay. Home visits might pick up again. But face-to-face consultations are likely to be less than how they were before the pandemic.