Monday, 14 May
If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know I
was in Philadelphia last week for the American Psychiatric
Association congress. My predecessor, Dinesh Bhugra, has an amazing
stamina for travel which I think I lack! There were many long waits
in airports, but these were improved by chatting to international
associates living across the world who hold fond memories of their
time spent in training or on secondment in the UK. Their interest
in what is happening in the UK is genuine, and I found their
experiences of working in places like South America and Africa
fascinating. We can learn a great deal from them.
On Friday morning, after an overnight flight,
I arrived bleary-eyed at Paddington station to meet a very
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Clare Gerada, en route to Cardiff. It
made me think that many of the royal colleges have a strong female
leader – Clare at the GPs and Lindsay Davies at the Faculty of
Public Health, and we’ll soon be joined by Hilary Cass who will
take office at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health at
their annual conference next week. I hope that we will all be able
to make a strong alliance around helping families.
While I was away, I made quite a few taxi
journeys. I often wonder how other psychiatrists deal with the “And
what do you do?” question. Over the years, the silence that often
used to follow my answer, “I’m a psychiatrist”, has lessened. And,
no doubt like many of you, giving such an answer has meant I’ve
listened to many taxi drivers’ woes, concerns about family members
and, of course, a stock set of psychiatrist jokes.
But the response I had from a taxi driver the
other week intrigued me. He said that 30 years previously, he’d
“worked in submarines”. On the submarine, they had a psychiatrist
observing the behavioural patterns of humans living in confined
spaces under the sea. Apparently this psychiatrist honed in on the
submarine’s engineer, who had a daily habit of washing and hanging
up to dry one sock each day. The psychiatrist was totally
fascinated and baffled by this – no one told him that the engineer
only had three socks. So if this was your PhD (or that of someone
you know!), please tell me!
On Saturday, I attended a UK meeting of the
World Association for Psychosocial
Rehabilitation, which was hosted by Lancashire Care NHS
Foundation Trust. This meeting is always well attended by
colleagues from across the UK, and we had a very interesting
presentation from Scandinavia about models of rehabilitation. It
was interesting to hear how cuts are being made in mental health
even in countries which we may regard as being well-resourced.
The meeting was a good opportunity to catch up
with colleagues and friends from the north west, including members
who are very active in the work of the College. Over lunch, we had
discussions about how staff grade psychiatrists would like to be
more involved in the College, and how they would like their
important work to be better recognised within the College, by
colleagues and by government. I will follow through on this.
On Sunday morning, I enjoyed listening to
Sheila Hollins
on Desert Island Discs (if you missed it, you can listen
again). She is the second female psychiatrist to appear on the
programme recently – many of you will remember Gwen Adshead’s
appearance in 2010. It is fantastic for our
specialty to have members appear on this iconic programme, sharing
who they are, giving insight into how diverse and creative
psychiatrists are, and what psychiatrists can contribute to
society.
In the afternoon, we found some distraction
activities while we waited for the football results. We visited the
beautiful Tatton Park
for their Biennial 2012, an exciting exhibition of contemporary
art. The theme is ‘Flights of Fancy’ so there were lots of rockets
and UFOs to be found throughout the gardens (see this photo of a
rocket complete with our very own Jedi warrier).
I was of course delighted to hear the final
scores, before hearing not very tuneful renditions of Blue Moon
float across the streets of the city.
On a less positive note, the solution to the
leaking roof did not work. I am now strangely resigned to the water
feature in the corner of my living room. But, as I’m attempting to
downsize, I don’t think the estate agent shares my perception.
Sue
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