I was browsing social media and noticed a few of my aesthetic competitors posting about qualifications that they achieved during the Covid-19 lockdown period and how they’ve added some new letters after their names. It got me thinking that I should post about what I’ve been up to during lockdown and what the letters after my name mean.
Lockdown
Unlike some of my aesthetic colleagues, I still work in the NHS and not being able to practice aesthetics during lockdown meant I could focus more time on this. As a GP Partner in a busy practice, I had my work cut out for me. Contrary to public opinion, GP surgeries have not been closed during lockdown but in order to reduce patient foot-fall in surgeries we had to change the way we did our job literally overnight.
In order to maintain patient and staff safety we had to adapt every aspect of our day to day practice. Rather than the the face to face consultations that formed the majority of our workload previously, we had to quickly get to grips with telephone triage and video consultations. On average we dealt with more than 200 patients a day as well as prescriptions, referrals, reports, home visits and talking to other health and social care professionals. We were certainly kept busy.
We quickly adopted new infection control regimes and had to learn to work in PPE. After seeing any patient, all surfaces had to be disinfected including medical equipment, furniture, IT equipment, doors and even pens. Patients are assessed wearing the WHO recommended PPE in the form of a surgical mask, plastic apron and double latex gloves. And for some patients we also use visors. This PPE is single use and changed between patients. We’ve also been helping to man the Covid-19 Assessment Centre at Victoria Hospital – assessing suspected Covid-19 cases and admitting patients if unwell.
Working as a GP during this unprecedented period, has been an exciting experience but hasn’t come without it’s problems. Before lockdown even hit I contracted Covid-19 myself. From my antibody test it is most likely that I caught it before we were even issued with PPE. Thankfully, I only suffered a mild form so I recovered quickly and was back at work in no time. We also experienced peaks of Covid-19 numbers with evolving pressure on different services at different stages that meant we had to be flexible as the situation changed week by week.
Fortunately, our Covid-19 numbers have reduced significantly over the past few weeks and we are gradually returning to some new normality. This has meant that in addition to my GP work , I have reopened SkinGenius and have been treating aesthetic clients again. Working in the NHS during a pandemic has been hard work with little downtime but it has also provided invaluable experience in Covid-19 infection control measures, wearing PPE and performing video consultations. All of which are useful as a GP and in my aesthetic practice. So you’re in extra safe hands with me now.
