Abstract
This is a series on the working lives of medical professionals. Please e-mail any suggestions or comments to
David Haslam has been a GP in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire since 1976 and is National Clinical Adviser to the Care Quality Commission (CQC), immediate past-President of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), and visiting Professor in Primary Health Care at de Montfort University, Leicester. He is also chair of the NHS Evidence Advisory Committee, a member of the Postgraduate Medical Education Training Board (PMETB), a member of the NHS National Quality Board, a Fellow of the Royal College of GPs, a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Educators, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. David was Chairman of the RCGP from 2001–2004, and was a member of the NHS Modernisation Board, vice chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, a member of NHS MEE, and co-chair of the MMC Programme Board from 2006–2009. He has written 13 books, mainly on health topics for the lay public and translated into 13 languages, and over 1000 articles for the medical and lay press. He was awarded the CBE in 2004 for services to Medicine and Health Care.
1. Please outline your typical working day
A typical day? Chance would be a fine thing. Every day is both unpredictable and different, but that's what makes it fascinating. My wife occasionally claims that the best explanation for my career is ADHD, but the variability of my timetable is what really appeals to me. That's probably why I chose to be a generalist, rather than a specialist. I still spend 1.5 days each week seeing patients in my Cambridgeshire practice, and I genuinely don't believe I have ever had a week when something new hasn't happened. It might be a condition I've never seen before, or a different presentation of a common condition, but when in a recent surgery I had seen two new suspected cancers requiring urgent referral, a new diagnosis of bulimia, and a middle-aged man with serious suicidal intent – and all of these just before coffee – I know why I repeatedly say that General Practice is the hardest specialty of all to do well.
When I'm not seeing patients, my time is split between a number of different roles. Until the end of last year, it was a fantastic privilege to have been President of the Royal College of GPs, a role that took me all round the UK and the world to meet and talk with fellow family doctors. I am a member of the National Quality Board, and I am employed by the CQC as a National Clinical Adviser, a role that I previously held with the Healthcare Commission. My main aim in this part of my working week is to work with clinicians in trying to look at the most worthwhile ways of measuring and demonstrating quality. Clinicians want to provide a high quality service – I believe that good regulation should encourage this. Bad regulation can do the opposite.
Mind you, 10 years ago I would have been surprised to know that I would ultimately have been so involved in regulation, but I am also a Board member of PMETB. In this role I have been chairing PMETB's review of the impact of the European Working Time Directive on medical education, and I also chair the Advisory Committee for NHS Evidence, a development of NICE's work that I believe will be of huge value to clinicians and commissioners by sorting, sifting, and prioritizing the mass of guidelines and information that threaten to overwhelm us all.
And in all these roles – whether it is in my practice, or CQC, or NICE, or PMETB – there is a real pleasure from working with people who want to make a difference. The work is often difficult, but if I didn't have fun as well, I wouldn't do it. Life is too short.
And I try and ensure that life isn't shortened. Being RCGP President, and previously having been RCGP Chairman, involved a near absurd ingestion of calories what with all the working dinners and working lunches that came my way. And so when I was 55 I took up running, and have since done one marathon, three half-marathons, and a whole host of 10ks. Thank heavens for the iPod! Without podcasts and music I rather suspect that running would seem more tedious than it manages to be.
But a typical day? No, thank you…
2. One aspect of work you most look forward to each day
The variability – I'm never quite sure what is going to happen, and what new opportunities may appear.
3. One aspect of work you least look forward to each day
Commuting – I live in Cambridgeshire, and much of my work requires me to be in London three or four days a week. The iPod and laptop help make the time more productive, but I could still do without the time on the train.
4. A person who has inspired you most at work (past or present)
Michael O'Donnell, a great writer and broadcaster, who accepted my first article in the late-lamented World Medicine, since then I have published maybe 1000 articles as well as 13 books. (My role model has always been Hawkeye, from M*A*S*H, but sadly he is fictional.)
5. The most significant achievement of your career
There was one clinical case of meningococcal septicaemia that I was hugely relieved made a full recovery. No amount of high-profile public roles could be better than the day when the lad in question reappeared in my surgery after he was discharged from hospital and simply said ‘Thank you for saving my life’. Cheesy, but hugely moving.
6. List your reasons for choosing this career
My dad had been a GP in Birmingham, and died when I was 14. It was clear that what he did made a real difference to people.
7. Alternative career (in another lifetime)
Test Match Special commentator or travel journalist.
8. Non-medical book(s) you are currently reading
Joseph O'Neill – Netherland – a quite remarkable book by an Irish Author, about cricket in New York.
9. Song(s)/piece(s) of music you are currently listening to
With over 20,000 tracks on my iPod, music is an absolute passion so choosing one track is impossible – but the album that's playing at the moment as I write this is ‘Raising Sand’ by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
10. How do you wind down at the end of the working day?
Running, listening to music, and watching ‘The West Wing’.