Dr Jon Dolman
Clinical Director, Somerset Training Hub
Dr Jon Dolman
Clinical Director, Somerset Training Hub
What’s your background?
I initially moved to Somerset from South Wales in the early 2000s to train in Psychiatry. After a couple of years I was missing other aspects of medicine too much so completed the General Practice VTS, qualifying in 2007. Being a GP has allowed me to continue my interest in mental health while also developing other areas. Hearing of the intricacies of people’s lives and supporting them towards well-being has been particularly exciting for me as a GP.
Why Somerset?
I’d become familiar with the area as my wife is from here originally. I already knew that Somerset is a large, beautiful county.
It also worked for us as a location it allowed us to be within touching distance of family. We knew that the area would be a fantastic place to bring up our children.
What is your day job like?
Over the years I’ve worked as a salaried GP and a partner. More recently, I’ve taken on a number of different roles in a portfolio career. My work focuses on aiming to support colleagues but also reviewing systems of how we work, to see if we can support patients and ourselves better. Current work includes mentoring new to practice GPs, training hub work, clinical work (mainly as a locum, through a local locum service) and appraising. I also lead GP Career Plus and have an interest in lifestyle medicine.
I find having a varied role energises me. I think feeling energised in our career is really important to maintain our passion for what we do.
GP Career Plus – what is this?
This is a reimbursed 12 session, semi-structured, facilitated course available to GPs in the county. We always met face to face until the pandemic. Since then we have settled on a mix of face to face and virtual sessions for each course.
Often in healthcare we are praised for “resilience” but I think that in reality this means surviving in our role, despite the difficulties of the system. I think we can aim higher than this.
Our goal in GP Career Plus is to help people thrive, not just survive, in healthcare. The topics we cover are important. But we find, even more importantly, that the key component to GP Career Plus is the shared, lived, objective experience that group participants bring each to other. It’s often difficult to be totally open with our colleagues when we are having moments of doubt in ourselves/career but GP Career Plus allows this to happen in a supportive, objective, constructive way. As people enjoy this format so much, many groups continue together regularly meet long after their 12 weeks have finished.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Having hobbies outside of work is really important to me; the work-life balance matters. I particularly enjoy running, gardening and reading. As a family, we love going off in our campervan and exploring different parts of the country, as well as our more local daytrips to enjoy Somerset.
Come and join us
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