Finding fairhealth podcast

Finding Fairhealth through silver liningsThe amazing and inspiring Dr Farzana Hussain fills us in on her busy year in General Practice in one of the hardest hit areas for Covid-19 in the country (2mins). We discuss the silver linings in a challenging year (3mins) and why she loves working as a GP in Newham (7mins30). We talk about the challenges she finds working in an area of deprivation but also the feeling of meaningful work and achievement that she feels she wouldn’t get elsewhere. She champions human-to-human interaction and seeing each of her patients as the individuals that they are (10mins).Farzana has created something very special with her team at The Project Surgery in Newham. We discuss practice culture (18mins 30s), community and how she has created the amazing team she works so closely with today. We discuss the importance of autonomy (21m 30s) for her in managing her busy week and how still manages to make time for herself and her family. Farzana explains her experience as prominent BAME woman working in General Practice at the moment (23m 40s). We discuss her role as primary care network (PCN) lead locally and co-chair of the PCN federation at NHS confederation. We discuss getting the balance right between making a difference at a national and local level (25mins) and an insight into the communication channels and challenges for her across the system. We also discuss some of the opportunities going forward to tackle health inequalities that PCNs can bring (29mins).As always on the podcast we finish with Farzana’s magic genie wish (37mins) and her book/resource (38mins) recommendation.Farzana’s ResourcesThe Marmot Report 10 years on RCGP Annual General Conference 2019Further resourcesNHS confederationFarzana's session with the Trailblazer GP fellows in Oct 2020

Finding Fairhealth through making Black Lives Matter.In this episode we talk to Dr Julie Duodu and Dr Lucy Carter. I can’t stress enough how incredible these two ladies are and what a pleasure it was to be (a small) part of their conversation. Julie is a GP in Leeds working at York Street practice, a large inner city practice in Leeds serving the homeless population. Lucy is a GP in the culturally diverse borough of Hackney in London.As much as I try to make some of these episodes short and a quick listen, I can't do that for them all! This is a longer episode than usual, but I think you’ll understand why, as the conversation just flowed, all the time covering important and fascinating ground. I hope you enjoy hearing the experiences of these amazing women.We kick off with Lucy and Julie filling us in with how they are both doing in this challenging time (3mins). We discuss the opportunity the events of recent months have given to talk more about race (6mins). We cover the challenges with talking about race (6mins) and becoming more comfortable with being uncomfortable(8mins). Julie and Lucy share a mutual feeling of being proud of their heritage but feeling a pressure to fit in (12m20s). We discuss how society’s attitudes have impacted on the journey to where they both are now as GPs (18m40s) and how hard they have had to work to get to where they are now (22mins).Lucy and Julie share their experiences of attitudes to race in the workplace (23mins 20s). They share stories and experiences over the years of how race has impacted on their relationship with their patients (24mins). We discuss being labelled as ‘the black doctor’ (27mins) and having to negotiate racism in their everyday work including what happens when patients refuse to see a health professional based on the colour of their skin (29m30s).We go on to discuss the importance of good leadership in having a unified stance on anti-racism (34m 40s) and supporting health care professionals in situations where they have been treated badly. We also talk about the importance of representation and diversity in leadership and how inspiring and impactful this can be early in a career and beyond (37mins)I ask Lucy and Julie how race impacts on health inequalities amongst their patient population (39mins). We discuss COVID-19 and how race and ethnicity impacts the patients in their communities, including childhood obesity(40mins), access to health care (43mins) and mental health problems. We talk about medical education and teaching being orientated around the white normal and how looking into the future this needs to change (41mins).We discuss Lucy and Julie’s views on some of the solutions to dealing with race and health inequalities for our patients (46m 35s) including:Recognising that health inequalities exist and that race plays a huge part in this;Opening up spaces in the workplace to explore biases;Decolonising medical curriculums, defaulting from the white standard;Increasing the diversity of race and ethnicity in leadership roles;Keeping the conversation about race going into the future (53m 10s);As always we finish with books, further resources and one magic genie wish from both Lucy and Julie (60m).Lucy’s resourcesBrit-ish: Race Identity and belonging by Afua HirschRobin DiAngela White Fragility: Why is is so hard for white people to talk about racismJulie’s recoursesNatives by AkalaSuperior by Angela SainiColour brave rather than colour blind TEDTalk by Mellody Hobson Further resourcesMessage from Simon Stevens on Black Lives Matter and health inequalitiesMind the Gap Handbook of clinical signs on black and brown skinAllyship

In this episode we catch up with Dr Jonathon Tomlinson, an amazing GP in Hackney. Jonathan fills us in with how he is getting on during the coronavirus crisis. He shares his experience working in a practice in one of the hardest hit areas for coronavirus in the UK (1min 40). He tells me how his team has acted quickly to manage the acute situation but also continues to support the long term conditions for many of his patients in the community.We talk about some of the many changes in primary care over the last few weeks (5min 40s). These include; phone and video consultations; losing the GP waiting room; sharing clinical decisions and talking more with colleagues. We discuss the effects of coronavirus on those people living in deprivation (10mins 10s) and Jonathon shares some experiences from his practice and his patients (11mins). Jonathan talks about the social determinants of health and the importance of prevention along with all the stuff we are seeing in the media at the moment like PPE (14mins 50s) .One of the things that GPs can do is advocacy and Jonathon was keen to discuss the work of Dr Rudolf Virchow 1821-1902 (19mins). Virchow is famous for saying that politics is nothing but medicine on a large scale and that our role as doctors is to show the link between social conditions and medical diseases (21mins). Jonathan explains why Virchow's message is particularly relevant at the moment. We explore the role of a GP in advocacy and coordination of a response to support those who are most in need and vulnerable. We discuss how much our job in primary care should include advocacy on behalf of our patients (26mins) and Jonathon offers some ideas for some steps clinicians can take forward to achieve this. Jonathon mentions collaboration, networks (e.g. The Deep End Network), treating long term conditions. We finish our conversation talking about the importance of caring for our patients (28m 55s), Jonathon shares his favourite book (32m 10s), and he tells us what his magic genie wish would be (34m 40s).Jonathon’s recommended BookLet Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee (photographs byphotographer Walker Evans)Other reading“Caring Effects” Julian Tudor-Hart and Paul Dieppe (mentioned at 30mins 50s)Jonathon’s excellent blogMy (Rachel's) favouritesIf you want to learn more about advocacy and Rudolf Virchow Jonathon has written lots about trauma informed care but this one will get you startedCoronavirus consulting and more about Jonathon’s experiences over the last few monthsYou can also find Jonathon on tweeting on being a GP and topics related our discussion @mellojonny