Abstract
1. Please outline your typical working day
On Wednesdays I work at the Queens Medical Centre, away from my usual base of the City Hospital. Today I got to my hot desk in the Nottingham Trials Unit by Sam, and checked email and drank coffee. Had an 8.30am business meeting with the unit manager and a 9.30am meeting with a group of surgeons planning a trial of different treatments for Dyupytren's contracture. At 10.45am I popped out for a political publicity photograph - I'm standing for election to Nottinghamshire County Council in June. I went back to the trials unit for a staff appointment review at 11.15am, appraised a professorial colleague in child health at 12.15pm. I spend a lot of time appraising or being appraised these days and sometimes grumble about it. But this one went well and I think my colleague found it valuable.
This is a series on the working lives of medical professionals. Please e-mail any suggestions or comments to
Spent the afternoon operating in the new Independent Treatment Centre - one of Tony Blair's ideas to add a bit of entrepreneurial fizz to the NHS. The Treatment Centre gets paid only for work done so they keep us on our toes. No clashing on-calls, lists done by deputies, cancelled sessions without a good reason and absolutely no late starts. The nurses record any consultant who fails to turn up on time - one note read ‘Arrived 15 minutes late. Said he had problems parking!’ I was pleased I didn't feature. Many of my colleagues are dubious, but I love it. The cases are all minor, the lists start on time and we work hard.
The list officially runs till 5.30pm but today, despite a full list of seven patients, we finished at 4.30pm and I was out of the door just after 5pm - perhaps we should increase the normal list size to eight or nine! My official work day was done, but the traffic was terrible so I popped back to the trials unit to catch up on emails and write this piece. Home by 7.30pm. I don't eat breakfast, or anything else, during a normal weekday but I make up for it when I get home.
Jim Thornton
2. One aspect of work you most look forward to each day
Helping doctors in different specialties design their trials - it makes me learn about things, from cardiac surgery to rehabilitation, that I've hardly thought about since medical school.
3. One aspect of work you least look forward to each day
Major surgery. The older I get the less confident I feel and the more it stresses me. I ruthlessly refer difficult cases out to my colleagues, but I also fear that it's not entirely in jest that the juniors joke: ‘You can do this one professor It looks easy!’
4. A person who has inspired you most at work (past or present)
Jim Pearson, an obstetrician in Cardiff, taught me how to manage labour. He was skilled at striking the balance between letting nature take its course, sometimes for quite a long time, and also being ready to step in when things went wrong. He died last year, and I wrote his obituary in The Guardian.
5. The most significant achievement of your career
The Growth Restriction Intervention Trial (Lancet 2004), the only randomized trial of the obstetrician's key intervention, timed delivery. This encouraged doctors to be more cautious in delivering early, and inspired a number of ongoing similar studies.
6. List your reasons for choosing this career
Pretty much accidental. Early in my career I spent four years in a mission hospital in Kenya where the vast majority of the work was either paediatrics or obstetrics. Paediatrics scared me, so I concentrated on obstetrics.
7. Alternative career (in another lifetime)
In 2005 I tried to get elected to Parliament, but it wasn't for me. I was hopeless at politics. If I had my time over again I'd try my hand at business - I think the world needs wealth creation far more than it needs doctors. But I'd probably be hopeless at that too.
8. Non-medical book(s) you are currently reading
Patrick French's new biography of VS Naipaul. For a living subject it is extraordinarily frank about his personal life. The revelations about his racism, much put-upon first wife and his longstanding sadomasochistic adulterous affair are mind-boggling.
9. Song(s)/piece(s) of music you are currently listening to
Roberta Flack's ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ and Willy Nelson's ‘Always on my Mind’.
10. How do you wind down at the end of the working day?
I put snippets on my blogs - typically notes on canoeing or the environment on www.igreens.org.uk. Then I uncork some wine and vegetate in front of the television.