I have had the experience of locuming in and around Ayrshire and Glasgow since CCT in August 2016. I live in the West End of Glasgow and commute to Barns Medical Practice in Ayr 3-4 days per week which takes about 45 minutes.
I chose Ayrshire and Arran for a number of reasons.
For training:
- I enjoyed a busy but fun year as an FY2, particularly in A+E.
- I feel that DGH’s are perfectly suited for generalist specialties like GP due to a large exposure of ‘common’ presentations.
- I wanted to work in Ayrshire in the future and felt that it was a good opportunity to build relationships with consultants.
- My training practice was Arran – I chose this specifically to continue the work in A+E and acute medicine which I enjoyed. Ultimately, which I didn’t realise prior to applying for this practice, it provided a closer email communication link with secondary care consultants due to the Geographical logistics of looking after an island population. I feel this probably provided better care for the patients, put less strain on secondary care and was an excellent learning experience for a GP trainee.
- Commuting from West End to Kilmarnock is much easier than commuting to the Southern or any other Glasgow hospital (and parking).
As a GP principle:
- I feel that Ayrshire GP practices offer a better service generally to the patients than Glasgow practices do with a much better availability of minor surgery, ECG, spirometry, cryotherapy etc.
- There is a simpler secondary care system and it is easy to get familiar with the consultants in a fairly short space of time
- There is a mixed patient demographic group
- I grew up in Ayrshire, trained in Ayrshire and want to benefit the healthcare of the people of Ayrshire although I live in Glasgow so I am willing to commute the distance for this principle
- I am willing to travel an even longer distance (to Ayr rather than any of the other practices between Glasgow and Ayr) as I have found a great team of enthusiastic and forward thinking team to work with
- Ayrshire is beautiful and has the benefit of having a lot of nearby surrounding countryside, the convenience of reasonably built up towns and the city is less than an hours commute
