More about me
Some people like to know a little bit more personal information. Medical consultations often ask patients to put a lot of trust in their doctor and share intimate aspects of their biographies and challenges. I have written a little bit of information about me and my life here, for those who find it helpful to know a little more about the person with whom they sharing such information.
My parents lived and worked as volunteers in Camphill Communities in Scotland and England, so I grew up in a caring, supportive community, co-habiting with people from all over the world and seeing a very fine example from my parents and others around me of how to be in the world, living lives focused on service and care, community and cooperation, self-awareness, and self-development.
My schooling included a mixture of Waldorf Education and comprehensive state school, 6th form and community college. I was most interested in the sciences, mathematics and languages and was always an enthusiastic learner, who enjoyed making new discoveries and connections and understanding the world on a deeper level. I also enjoyed a variety of sports and spent a lot of time exploring the North York Moors on foot or by bike and also developed an interest in photography, attending night classes to deepen my knowledge of the subject.
I began my medical studies at the University of Cambridge, and benefited from high quality small-group tuition by esteemed educators such as Prof. Peter Abrahams, whose love of general practice as well as anatomy and education was an inspiration to me.
After 3 years, I transferred my studies to the University of Edinburgh to complete the clinical part of my studies, moving closer to my siblings and re-establishing my connection with the beauty of the natural landscape of Scotland which I had known as a child. During my time in Edinburgh, I developed an interest in complimentary medicine, learning about a wide variety of modalities and studying Reiki and Swedish massage to a professional level.
On completion of my GP training, my partner and I decided to move to the highlands for a year, where I trained in rural general practice before moving to Aberdeenshire where we started our family and have lived since. My move to the Grampian area was motivated by the possibility of training and working at the Camphill Wellbeing Trust.
It was here that I trained in Anthroposophic Medicine, an integrative, multimodal system of medicine, originating within the context of western medicine but extending the concept of health and disease based on a holistic understanding of nature and human beings.
I was drawn to this approach for a number of reasons, but primarily because from my training in complimentary medicine, I understood on an experiential level that there was more to the health of human beings than the presence of absence of this or that molecule in the correct place, but I wanted to learn to understand a conceptual model which integrated my conventional medical training and concepts with those which I had learned on my parallel journey in the complimentary medicine world: I wanted an integrated model which brought these together in a coherent way so that I could understand what might most help the patient in front of me on a day-to-day basis as a GP. Within a year of completing my training as a GP, it was clear to me that I often didn’t have an answer to the problems with which my patients presented, so I wanted to extend my “toolbox” be able to support patients with conditions for which there was no effective conventional medical treatment (please read my page on Anthroposophic Medicine for examples).
