Haddenham Medical Centre News

It is with very mixed feelings that I leave my Health Visiting career.   I started work in the NHS in 1965 as a student nurse.  After I qualified as a State Registered Nurse with a few months experience, I completed my State Certified Midwifery training.   Two years later I became a sister in Durham City Hospital Outpatient Department.

In 1972 I resigned my post to become a full time mother.   However, one never knows what is around the corner, and I returned to nursing and attended a Post Grad course in New College Durham and became a Health Visitor in 1974, training during that year in the same place Billy Elliott was filmed, I remember parking my car in the street he danced down.  

After working in the small town of Stanley in a team of 11 Health Visitors.   I felt it was time for a change.   What a change it was!   I almost chose to work in Maldon, Essex where we have friends and relatives but my daughter, always wiser than me, liked the Aylesbury area.   I moved, along with my mother (Fay Featherstone) and daughter with two dogs, fish and a hamster to a small bungalow at Stoke Mandeville, which was owned by Bucks Health but kept my home in Durham City, just in case!

Well, it all worked out well and we eventually made our home in Haddenham and 27 years later I am still here!

The lesson I have learnt is that you should always do your best as the past frequently jumps up to greet you.   From almost 300 miles away it was my pleasure to visit the granddaughter of the Obstetric Surgeon who delivered me!, with her two children, and also someone who is sure I was present at the birth of her son in Darlington Maternity Hospital.  I now am visiting the babies of the children who I visited!

I will never forget the many pleasures I gained from these children, one who wanted my red shoes, the one who stood at the gate to watch my pony go by, the only two children ever born on my own birthday at 40 and 60 and many more other special times.   My thanks to you all for the privilege of visiting in your homes.

I have enjoyed my time working as the Haddenham Health Visitor and gaining my new skills as a Practice Teacher and Assessor, working with CONI family (those with previous cot deaths) all over Aylesbury Vale and working in Sexual Health (family Planning).

Times are changing but I am not worried about change.   I had forgotten all the fun that goes with working in a large team.   The Health visitors now works as a corporate team sharing visits to home, clinics and groups and are called the Ridgeway Team.   In this team we are not in one small office but spread over, Haddenham, Long Crendon, Brill, Thame, Chinnor, Princes Risborough and Hughendon and I am no longer the youngest Health Visitor but the oldest in the group of Health Visitors.

What am I to do everyone asks!   Well I shall have more time for my friends, close family and horse, as well as time for me!   I intend to gain new skills and hobbies (not related to work) learn to ride correctly, who knows 2012 Olympics!   Forty Three years full time with only 1 1/2 years out, if having a baby counts as time out, is enough time to work for good health care in the NHS!

"The time has come" the walrus said, "to speak of many things" – but this time it’s retirement!
Yes, it has finally come to the crunch.   It has been planned from my entry into General Practice thirty one years ago.   My medical parents had retired at 60 and I was going to do the same.   All the financial planning was geared to it and the gradual wind-down through part-time working would ease me into it gently.   As I write this, I only have eight more days in the surgery, spread over the month of April as I work only two days each week in the practice.   So what about the other days in the week?   Over the last three years I have been building up other medical education related jobs to replace the surgery work.   Helping the next generation of doctors has become a most fascinating and challenging role, especially in the current climate of such constant change (which I do not believe helps patients or staff to have or give the best care!).   But if someone is to care for me when the dementia gets really bad, then someone needs to help these younger doctors – who often look a bit like rabbits in the headlights with everything being thrown at them.   Although as young doctors, I and my colleagues worked very long hours, I think the current climate is much harder to work in.

Will I miss it all?   As the day draws closer, I have realized just how much I really have loved the patient contact, most of whom I consider to be good friends.   We have been through many deep and meaningful experiences together and these cannot be forgotten easily.  This loss is going to be a very big bereavement which will be hard to replace.   But the other great loss will be the contact with my colleagues in the team - a team who have been so devoted to high standards of patient care and who have wanted to support each other in their delivery of that care.   There is always a camaraderie in a medical team and this will be greatly missed (I can see myself sliding back into the staff room just to be a part of the banter for a while!).  I want to thank them for the enormous place they have held in my life as we have battled the NHS together as a team.

So how will I fill my time?   Of the many retired patients who I have had the privilege to look after, many have said they can’t see how they ever had time to go to work.  I think this will be true of me too.   I was always brought up to have numerous interests.   So piano playing, piano restoration, woodworking, photography especially of wildlife, genealogy, medical education roles with medical students through to established doctors, teaching and pastoring in the local church – and no doubt someone will find something else too, like being a grandad (my first grandchild being born a week before I retire).   I hope the odd siesta and multiple trips to Scotland will feature as the Highlands are a wonderful place to stop and wonder at creation (not that I haven’t done that with every consultation!).   I think that Tricia and I will have no trouble enjoying our retirement – I know it will be very busy for a long time to come.

I want to thank the patients who I have cared for these many years for the privilege it has been, the fun it has been, sometimes the entertainment we have shared, many times the tears we have shared over the most difficult of situations, but always a rewarding, albeit so often a challenging, time together.   I know the practice is in excellent hands now and would encourage everyone to welcome Dr Karen West who will be joining the practice in July to replace me.   Apart from teaching, I will be hanging up my stethoscope, so no locums are forseen as there will be so much else to do.

Tricia and I are not leaving the village, so we will be walking around and hope to continue seeing most (if not all) of you in excellent health.   So au revoir for now.

As you may already know, I retired from General Practice at the end of December.  This is not because I have a ‘life threatening illness’, ‘am pregnant’ or have been ‘struck off’!  I always intended to retire when I reached 55 years but for various reasons I have decided to retire a few years earlier.
I have greatly enjoyed my years at Haddenham.  Having moved here from South East London, I wanted to get out of city practice and also be closer to the rest of my family.
Moving to Haddenham was certainly one of the best decisions I have ever made.  I was touched by how welcome I was made to feel, by staff and patients, and I quickly settled in.  I have found my time here challenging but rewarding, and the decision to leave was not easy. I do, however, have a lot of other interests that I am looking forward to being able to follow up in my retirement.
I would particularly like to say goodbye to all my regular patients who I have not had time to see in person. I hope that I have been able to help patients through their various illnesses and crises, and also hope I have not upset too many people with my occasional abruptness.
I would also like to say a big thank you to all the staff at the Medical Centre.  Dealing with the ‘public’ is a difficult job and I have always been impressed by the professionalism and care shown by the reception, nurses and clinical staff.
Finally I would like thank all the other doctors (past and present) who welcomed me when I joined and have always been very supportive.  I hope you patients realise that you have a top quality Medical Centre providing you with excellent healthcare which is second to none.
I am not moving out of the area and I suspect I will continue to see some of you in ‘Waitrose’!!!

Twenty-eight years ago I was on the interview panel that selected Val for the job of District Nurse at Haddenham. For many of you, past and present, that must count as my best afternoon’s work in my near 32 years at Haddenham.
District nurses are a special breed. Without exception they are some of the nicest people I have met who seem naturally and unselfishly to provide a competent, compassionate and caring service to those who are housebound or terminally ill while at the same time offering support to their carers. But Val has been extra special. There won’t ever be another Val.
Those who have worked with Val or been her patients will know that she instills confidence, that she is definite about advice and as far as I know always right! But at the same time there is an exceptional calm tenderness in her nursing care. As a GP to have a colleague whom one respects and has total confidence in is a great asset.
Val’s contribution to the social side of the practice will be missed too. Despite the fact that her values mean that she is never really off duty, she knows how to relax, successfully competing on the bowls green or on the golf course. She also knows how to party - boy can she party! A special memory for me will be the Elvis evening in The House of Spice, just after my 60th birthday, then Val had made the arrangements for a group of us from the practice to attend. During the evening as we joined in singing along with Elvis, Val drove us, like a rowing eight cox at the heat of the race, to greater heights of performance, with the words “Keep the rhythm”, “Keep the rhythm”, “Keep the rhythm”.
I wish you, Val, and your husband Jim, on behalf of all the Medical Centre staff, good luck and good health in your retirement. You will always hold a very, very special place in our hearts.