Lockdown Story: Dr Leon Creaney
Faculty Fellow Dr Leon Creaney is a SEM consultant based in Manchester. During the COVID 19 outbreak, he has returned to frontline NHS care. Below, Dr Creaney tells us his lockdown story.
We’d love to hear your lockdown story. To share yours, please contact us at enquries@fsem.ac.uk
For the past 9 weeks I’ve been redeployed to Halton Urgent Care Centre in Runcorn. It’s basically a branch of Warrington ED. I’ve been working as a locum Consultant Physician / Emergency Department doctor supporting the 20 Nurse Practitioners there.
I’ve dealt with all kinds of cases – from minor injuries to medical conditions. I’ve had a few nSTEMI’s, many head Injuries requiring CT’s and have sutured lots of quite complicated wounds. I support the nurses with any difficult cases and they check X-rays and ECG’s with me.
I’ve also had a lot of opportunities to practice MSK care – I’ve now reduced 2 Shoulder dislocations, 1 ankle and 2 wrists (Colles).
We are still supported by the main hospital ED consultants via telephone or ipads, and during COVID have direct communication with Consultants in other specialties. I’ve had conversations with Cardiologists about treatment of new onset AF, Surgeons about abdominal pain and PR bleeding, and Paediatricians about swallowed batteries. It has worked well.
It’s not been too onerous either. I usually do a 10 hour shift and see 10-15 patients myself as well as giving advice to the nurse practitioners. I’ve also continued to do MSK/SEM consultations on Zoom/MS Teams and have seen one patient with inflammatory arthritis who needed a steroid injection.
The generalist skills I learned as a GP, ED Middle grade and Team Physician were really helpful in making the transition and allowed me to remain useful during lockdown.
Many of the skills and lessons I’ve learned through this experience will be useful to my practice even after the current crisis, and could provide a useful model for SEM Physicians of the future to follow
Read another lockdown story from Dr Natasha Beach here
We’d love to hear your lockdown story. To share yours, please contact us at enquries@fsem.ac.uk
