Not the plan

I carried on like this for a while and life was good. The practice was thriving, I was doing the job I had always hoped to do and I had the privilege of working alongside Dad. Before long, however, another chapter of my life began.

I found out I was pregnant with my first child and, like most first-time mothers, I had absolutely no idea what lay ahead. I knew how to be a doctor, but I was far less certain about how to be a mum.

Finding a locum willing to cover a single-handed practice was not easy, even then. Many doctors preferred the security and support of larger practices, which were becoming increasingly common, and it took time to find someone prepared to take on the responsibility. When I eventually found a locum willing to cover for twelve months, I felt enormously relieved.

The plan seemed straightforward. I would take a year away from clinical work to focus on learning how to be a mother whilst remaining overall responsible for the practice. The locum would manage the day-to-day running of the surgery, but ownership and ultimate responsibility would remain with me. It felt like the perfect solution, allowing me to enjoy those precious early months with my daughter without walking away from the practice Dad had worked so hard to build.

For a while, everything went exactly as I had hoped. Then, three months into my maternity leave, the locum told me he was returning to Nigeria and gave me four weeks’ notice.

I can still remember the sinking feeling when he told me.

Suddenly the carefully constructed plan I had relied upon disappeared. I had a young baby, a single-handed practice with thousands of patients and no obvious way of making everything work.

Dad helped where he could, but he had already given so much to the practice over the years and I didn’t want him carrying that responsibility again. He was enjoying retirement, travelling, becoming a grandfather and doing the occasional locum session when it suited him. I wanted him to enjoy that stage of his life, not spend it rescuing me from mine.

For weeks I wrestled with what to do. The practice was something I had dreamed about for years and, having taken the long way round, I had finally reached the place I had always hoped to be. At the same time, I had become a mother and that mattered just as much, if not more.

In the end, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life.

A neighbouring GP who ran a local practice offered a solution. He proposed joining me as a partner and taking on the day-to-day responsibility of running the surgery. The arrangement would allow me to take a year away from the practice to focus on being a mother whilst remaining involved in an advisory capacity as needed. It seemed to offer the best of both worlds. I could be at home with my daughter whilst knowing that the practice and its patients were being looked after.

It was an incredibly generous offer and one for which I remain grateful.

There was, however, one condition. At some point in the future, he would want me to hand the practice over to him completely.

Under the rules at the time, a new partner needed to be in place for a year before the patient list could be transferred. The arrangement gave me breathing space and the opportunity to enjoy those precious early years of motherhood, but it also meant accepting that the practice Dad had worked so hard for might not remain mine forever.

I knew what the right decision was.

That didn’t make it any easier.

As it turned out, the arrangement worked well for all of us.

Over the next four years I had two more children and continued working at the practice for a few sessions each week when I could. It suited me perfectly. I was able to remain involved in a practice I loved whilst still being present for my children during those precious early years.

Life moved on, as it always does.

We eventually moved from Tooting to Carshalton. It wasn’t a dramatic move geographically, but it felt like a different stage of life. The children were growing, family life was becoming busier and we were looking for a little more space.

A short while later, Dad and Mum moved to a street just around the corner from us. Our lives had always been intertwined, but having them so close again meant they became part of the everyday rhythm of family life. The children could see their grandparents whenever they wanted and some of my happiest memories are of those years when three generations lived within walking distance of one another.

As the years passed, I gradually built a portfolio career closer to home, working in a variety of local practices and taking on different roles. It gave me flexibility, variety and, most importantly, the opportunity to be the kind of mother I wanted to be whilst continuing to practise medicine.

I was happy.

Looking back now, I can see that none of it happened in the way I had planned. The future I had imagined for myself as a young doctor had changed shape many times along the way. Yet somehow each decision led naturally to the next, even when at the time it felt uncertain or difficult.

Then an opportunity came along that completely changed the course of my career.

It was one of those moments that seems impossible to predict when you’re living through the earlier chapters of your life. A moment that made me realise that sometimes things happen in their own time and, perhaps, for reasons we only understand much later.

Looking back now, it is hard not to feel that everything had led me to that point.