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end, she ut general ialities. ducing P”. Hospital who save who you things. ot the e thinking ’s the one r GP ng. There nd working in a small town – Elgin’s population is 23,000 – and it’s not easy for the GP to enjoy a sneaky McDonald’s. But there are the views and her mum’s home cooking.
Kerry said: “I love this area. I went away for uni and thought of going further afield but I came back to do the last year of my training at the hospital. I can go out on my bike or out for a run in woods rather than being in the city.”
During the harvest she’s expected to put in a shift at the surgery, then a second one on the barley fields.
She said: “I go and do a bit of baling for my dad to help out. We have to The Family Doctors make the most of the weather. It’s a bit stressful but it’s a nice stress. I’m trying to make a nice bale and not break the tractor. It’s not that someone’s life is on the line. Plus I’m outside getting some fresh air.”
Throughout the rest of the year, she uses her folks and their freezer full of home-reared beef like a rural version of Deliveroo.
Kerry said: “I phone at 5.30 or 6pm and tell them I’m not going to be out of work for a while. ‘Could you make some food, there’s nothing in the house?’”
Kerry and her digital timer are two of the stars of The Family Doctors. She started using it when she was training and kept it after she passed her exams. She said: “It doesn’t mean I’m going to throw a patient out at 10 minutes. Some patients take longer but at least I know it’s not going on for 40 or 50 minutes.” We also see her struggling with her own emotions when a patient dies. Kerry said: “Coming from a farm helps a little. You are brought up knowing that after life comes death, you see it every day. But it’s still very tough. I get to have these amazing bonds with people and then they pass away.” Kerry favours working up a good sweat to counteract the stress of the surgery. A former member of the Scottish fencing team, she is now in training for a half triathlon in New Zealand next month. She said: “In medicine, we are all competitive and like to challenge ourselves. “But I’m doing this because I want to and to get fit. Exercise and getting fit is so important, I speak about it so much with my patients. I’d feel a bit of a hypocrite if I was sitting saying, ‘You need to eat healthily, exercise regularly’, and I wasn’t doing it. It’s much easier to take a harder line with lifestyle if I’m doing it myself.”
And when patients take her advice, the results can be extraordinary and humbling.
Kerry said: “Some have made amazing journeys. They’ve taken on board what I’ve said, lost multiple stones, changed their lifestyle. They’re out walking, cycling, running. They – and their families – have made themselves much healthier and extended their lives.
“I get emotional when they come back in and they’re telling me about it. To make that change to someone’s life is really touching.” week Carrie Gracie resigned as the BBC’s China editor because she could not “collude” in a policy of “unlawful pay discrimination”. She quit, citing pay inequality with male international editors earning more than her £135,000-a-year salary. There can be no doubt both Carrie and Catt deserve equal pay with their male colleagues. There is only one other foreign editor, apart from Carrie, Europe editor Katya Adler and without numbers it is difficult to fight the boys’ club, where a marker of success is who can pee the highest. Those women who try invariably get their feet wet. Journalism is not engineering and there is pretty much an even balance of women and men, yet they don’t get the same access to promotion in a media industry which is institutionally sexist. So when women in Hollywood and the media feel disempowered, how do the majority of working women feel? Regardless, we have to think the battles and ultimately the war can be won by standing together and digging in. a.brown@ dailyrecord .co.uk