Wednesday 30 October 2013

Autumn is here...

Summer has been and gone... big changes here! We moved from the islands back to Inverness, Highlands for our next year of training!

The year in the Western Isles ended fittingly with the HebCelt Festival, a wonderful weekend celebrating music in Stornoway with music, food & Pimms! A highlight for me was local group, Face the West, a new celtic music group who had the whole tent jumping and absolutely blew us all away!

Settling back into life on the mainland has been an adjustment.. all the things we missed while we were on the island such as Marks & Spencers and clothes shopping now don't have such an appeal! We are finding ourselves missing the quiet island life and being able to walk along the beach after work or walking around Stornoway Castle Grounds, excellent fresh seafood! We miss all the wonderful friends we made while we were on the island but look forward to returning for a visit in a few weeks!


Being back in the Highlands is fantastic, we are so lucky to have such spectacular scenery around us and so many things to do! I had a great day out canyoning in the Cairn Gorms with G2 Outdoors.. which for novices like me means suiting up with wet suit, helmet, life jacket (& sunglasses) following a river downstream, along the way you have fantastic pool jumps, natural water flumes and abseiling through waterfalls.. with the bonus of stunning scenery all around!

Work has been busy, re-adjusting to the pace of life in District General Hospital which is quite different from the Rural General Hospital... but many things remain the same! I am very lucky to be working with and supported by a fantastic Paediatric team and learning so much!

One of the reasons I was so excited about the rural GP training programme was the brilliant Out of Programme Opportunity to develop further interests and skills. I am currently planning my Out of Programme Experience, which is 6 months built into my GP training programme at the beginning of my 3rd year.. more details to follow...

So overall... would I recommend rural GP training in Scotland... YES!!!