Meon Medical Centre doctors mark 60 years of combined service to the NHS with flowers and cake
CAKE was part of the doctors’ orders at a medical centre on Wednesday (1st August) as staff and patients celebrated the long service of two GPs.
Doctors Karen Clarke and Emma Vickers, from the Meon Medical Centre, Lower Quinton, have both spent 30 years working within the NHS, both having qualified at Birmingham University and started working in hospital medicine in August 1993.
They both later opted for a career in general practice.
Dr Clarke is the senior partner at the practice and started working in Lower Quinton in January 1998.
Dr Vickers became a partner at Alcester Health Centre in 1999 and worked there for 16 years before moving to a practice in Redditch and joined Meon Medical Centre in 2018.
Karen said she chose to study medicine as it was a “fascinating subject, with so many opportunities” and a “career being able to help others while working with great people”.
She told the Herald that she loved that every day is different. She said: “We get the opportunity to see lots of different people and the privilege of seeing them at key points in their life.
“On a day-to-day basis though the biggest challenge is time, and working within a system that is under a great deal of stress.”
She said the practice of five GPs at Meon had grown significantly from 2,200 patients when she first joined to more than 6,000. She added: “We have a bigger team to help with this but yet seem to have less time as GPs to follow our patients through.”
Fortunately, Karen and Emma found the time to take a quick break from their busy schedules and enjoy some homemade cake.
She said: “It is good every now and then to step back and appreciate these milestones.
“Again though, I wouldn’t achieve them without a great team of people to work with – and I’m very fortunate at Meon.”
