Personal reflection of LTFT

Dr Soumaya Nasser El Din, MD (Hons), MRCPsych, MSc

ST6 General Adult Psychiatry

For most of my General Adult higher training, I worked as LTFT trainee achieving all my required competencies including an endorsement in Liaison Psychiatry leading to my Completion of my Training CCT. Just saying ‘I have just achieved my CCT’ gives me a great pleasure as there were times when I saw this further away than I expected and witnessed colleagues finishing their training much earlier than I did. 

To be completely honest, I was ambivalent when I started working as LTFT in 2013. I had many thoughts about others being condescending or treating me as ‘not caring enough about my career’. However, during the last five years, once colleagues realise that you do your job properly and sometimes you even give more than what is expected of your hours, there has not been any occasion that I was treated in any negative way.

I have always been treated respectfully and valued for my contributions to any team I worked for. I have been able to see more patients than my full time colleagues as I did so over longer period of time, I was involved in more service improvement projects and was able to follow these through. I witnessed the changes in the NHS and was able to reflect on these without rushing around doing a full time job. And most of all, I watched my two little girls grew and was able to give them enough time without feeling guilty wasting precious time with them. 

I feel as a dedicated psychiatrist and a ‘best’ mum for my little ones. Nothing other than LTFT and the support I received from my seniors, TPDs and the Deanery could have given me the opportunity to achieve my potentials like that. So massive thank you for making me feel satisfied and fulfilled and now it is your turn to achieve your latent abilities’.