PTSD and wellbeing in the COVID era

In this episode of Anaesthesia on Air, Dr Sue Walwyn interviews Professor Dame Clare Gerada and Professor Sir Simon Wessely about wellbeing and how we can support anaesthetists with wellbeing at work, particularly in light of the pressures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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(Recorded 4th June 2021)

Dr Sue Walwyn

President ,SEAUK and Training Programme Director (TPD) for West Yorkshire

Joint Clinical Lead for AaE: Advanced Educational Supervision

Sue is a consultant anaesthetist based in a large DGH with an interest in education.

Professor Sir Simon Wessely

Simon Wessely is a psychiatrist and epidemiologist

He started his psychiatry training at the Maudsley in 1984, and joined King’s College School of Medicine, as it was then called in 1991. He has been at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neurosciences, King’s College London, ever since.

He is a Past President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal Society of Medicine. Between 2017 -19 he led the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act, which paved the way for new legislation in 2022.

Professor Dame Clare Gerada

Professor Clare Gerada had just passed her 27th year mile stone working in the same GP practice in South London. She began working there having first trained in psychiatry and the Maudsley Hospital. Clare has worked at the interface between mental health and primary care ever since with a special interest in the care of substance misusers, the homeless and currently mentally ill doctors.

For the last decade she has led the largest physician health service in Europe and to date the service has had over 5000 doctors and dentists with mental illness present to it.

Clare led the Royal College of General Practitioners between 2010-2013, only the second women in its history to at its head. Clare trained in group analysis, obtaining the diploma of Group Analysis in 2014. She uses her experience from this field to help understand why doctors are so unhappy. Clare is proud that other than when on annual leave she is still a front line GP and even does her fair share of out of hours work. In 2019 Clare was elected the Co-Chair of the NHS Assembly.

Clare was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2000 Birthday Honours for service to medicine and to drug misusers and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to general practice.