Senior leader reflections: Gill Lowe

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust runs Good Hope, Heartlands, Queen Elizabeth and Solihull hospitals and Solihull community services.

As long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a doctor. My Mum says that from about three or four-years-old I said I wanted to be one. She even bought me a toy doctor’s kit that my kids now play with.

I grew up in the North East and came from a family where nobody else was a doctor. I remember being a teenager and knowing that I needed to work hard to be able to get the qualifications to go to medical school. As well as qualifications, the work experience that I needed to get into medical school was really difficult to secure. But I was very fortunate because my own GP practice agreed to let me do it with them. And I always think about that now when I get requests for people to do clinical attachments or to get their first foot on the ladder and I try and do as much of that as I can, because I feel like it's not that long ago for me (even if it is!).

So I never really thought about anything else, but obviously it became more obvious as I got older. It was something I might be able to do. And I thought once I got in to medical school, I was probably going to be a GP because that's what I associated being a doctor with.

My parents always told me that I could be a doctor but were very realistic with me (which I think is a good thing) and said it was going to be an awful lot of work. I remember my dad saying to me that there were easier ways to make money! At school I had teachers who encouraged me towards medicine and throughout my medical career I've had various supporters who have been instrumental in me being successful.

That’s probably the most important piece of advice I've been given: if you want to do something, you can do it if you work at it. ??In the 90s when I wanted to go to medical school there was still a lot of thought that you could only do so if your parents were doctors or if you were from a certain background. I think that support at each stage of your life and career journey is really important.

I did manage to get a place at medical school and I'm very grateful that such a critical thing happened to me at a very young age. I don't think you realise at the time how young you are when you're making such a massive life decision. I went to Cambridge to study medicine, which was a massive culture shock but I loved it. I even met my husband there.

In my first year of work after qualifying, I worked my 12-month block and had four months of haematology and oncology.?I worked with a really great haematology team in Kings Lynn in Norfolk. Afterwards, I went back home to Newcastle for six months and I worked in the Northern Centre for Cancer Treatment.??It was the haematology team in King’s Lynn that got me interested in haematology as a career.?I remember watching one of the Consultants I worked with - she would have a surgeon asking her questions one day, and then an obstetrician, and then she'd be looking after her own patients on the ward. She was really pragmatic and down to earth. And I just thought, ‘oh, I can imagine doing that.’

Early on, I applied for jobs that I didn't get, which at the time was disappointing but now I look back and think maybe those things worked out for the best.

I applied for a registrar post in Birmingham knowing nothing about Birmingham at all and not knowing anyone here, ?but I felt it would be a good rotation because it's a big, diverse city. In 2006, I got the post and me and my now husband moved to Birmingham.?It’s home now - my kids are Brummies and there's so much to do here. It’s a fantastic city.

I paused my clinical training and went to the University of Birmingham to do a PhD. ?It was about platelet disorders and I look after patients with that condition now and I still sometimes work with the team that I did the PhD with, which is really nice.

I had my eldest child in 2014 and then started my consultant post it in 2015, so that was a time of quite a lot of change. I was getting used to a new post, juggling how I was going to cope with maternity leave and returning ?to work and trying to keep everything going, but having all of these different things going on was quite enjoyable.?There was never a dull moment (and that is still the case!)

The last few years have been all about trying to respond to change. My roles in research have changed and I've got involved in more local and national research committees. Our inpatient haematology service moved over to be based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and we needed to plan our service needs and look after our junior doctors in the best possible way.

I've ended up working with non-malignant haematology patients (those with thrombosis and bleeding disorders).?I got interested as a registrar and did a few projects with my now colleagues, and then that led to me getting the PhD in the area. ??The more you do the more interesting it gets.

My favourite thing about my job is definitely the patients. I'm very fortunate that in area I work in, I look after patients and families for their whole adult lives. It's a cliché but it is a privilege to be able to be part of someone's life like that. I always want to give them the care I would want if it was me or my family in their position.

I think when you do a difficult job that has long hours, you need other things that keep you going. And one of those is my colleagues. I've got a vast number of colleagues now in the trust, all different professions, and it keeps me going at work that I have all that contact and that I've known a lot of these people for a very long time and would consider them my friends.

The volume of our work has definitely increased in recent years and matching the resources to that is a struggle.?We all want to deliver the best care we can but we can do that more effectively if we try to build teams who can do it sustainably.

There are lots of ways of being a leader. ?What I would say is that it is possible lead and to do it in a way that fits your personality.?What you need is to be able to enjoy your job and know what changes need to be made, and that some changes are going to take time!?You sometimes need to pick your battles about what you want to get done first.

With colleagues, I think it's recognising that people need support, and that by giving them support through difficult times we are helping them be more effective at work, but also showing that them that we are a fellow human being and not just a machine. It's all about communication.

Research takes a long time. And I quite often think about that now when I'm thinking of how we need to improve services and I can't do it as quickly as I would like to, but I know we will get there. It’s taught me perseverance: probably the most important skill that I've that I've learned along the way.

I will always happy to put my hand up and to say what I think we need to do to make patient experience the best it can be. And I think we're lucky as leaders that we are able to really advocate for the patients we look after. I'm always willing to say ‘I think this is what we need to change’ even if we know it's not something we can do straight away. Being bold is more about willingness to state how things are and how we can get to where we want to be.

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