How I found my place - #ChooseGeriatrics

Dr Laura Pugh is a Consultant in Geriatric Medicine and General Internal Medicine in the East Midlands. Laura is also the East Midlands Representative on the RCP New Consultant Committee.

I never imagined I was going to be a doctor, never mind a Geriatrician, but I can honestly say there’s no other job I would rather have.

I was only interested in the arts at school, and my first degree was in English Literature.  However, after several bends in the road, at the age of 30, I was working as a Diabetic Eye Screener part-time while my children were young.  The ‘big’ birthday got me thinking, and I applied for Graduate Entry Medicine and never looked back.

During the four years of medical school, I had one three-week placement in geriatrics.  I wish I could say that’s when it hit me, but it didn’t!  My overriding memory is how difficult I found it to cannulate such fragile veins.  I finished the placement, and graduated from medical school with the firm belief that I was destined to be a paediatrician.

A few weeks later I started my first FY1 job – in geriatrics!  Within a fortnight I was sold.  I was going to #ChooseGeriatrics and nothing would stop me.  The difference? It was one good geriatrician.

My consultant on that first rotation was everything I wanted to be as a doctor: proactive and professionally curious, holistic but efficient, and always patient-centred.  They made geriatric medicine seem like wizardry on one hand, and yet broke it down in such a way that it also appeared to be achievable and something I could be good at.  Since then, many things have kept me committed to the specialty I love, but that mentor started me on this path. 

So, if you work within geriatrics, show people why you chose it – you could be inspiring the next person to love our specialty. 

It’s easy to focus on the hardest parts of the job, or the bits we have less control over, but I try to remind myself that there could always be someone watching or listening that I could inspire to #ChooseGeriatrics, just like my mentor did for me.