By Lesley Walsh
A DOCTOR retiring from a busy local medical centre has been overwhelmed by the cards and gifts from patients who will miss the personal touch she has endeavoured to maintain despite the modern challenges of primary care.
Dr Veronica Craig has tended to the medical needs of multiple generations of Bangor residents at Ashley Medical Centre for 35 years but this week she hung up her stethoscope for good.
The 66 year-old, who has lived for many years in Helen’s Bay, is now looking forward to a retirement filled, at first, with a little time out to adjust to her new life.
Soon after, her retired husband Trevor is keen for her to join him on travels abroad, and she expects she will be keen to participate in local church activities and maybe a spot of volunteering.
Growing up in the Belmont area of Belfast, Dr Craig – or Rona as she’s known to friends – had envisaged a caring role in her future from an early age.
“It know it sounds a bit twee but I always wanted to do something to help people,” she said, at the end of one of her last few days at the Ashley Drive practice in Ballyholme.
And though she briefly toyed with the idea of pursuing an artistic career, when it came down to selecting her A-level subjects at Strathearn School, she opted for the sciences and maths that would pave the way for medicine.
That brought her to study at Queen’s University and after a seven year course, she qualified in 1983, spending a few years doing ‘a few hospital jobs’ as well as GP training at Newtownards Health Centre, under doctors Park and McCarthy.
There followed a number of placements and training which eventually led to General Practice, but Rona said her medical career almost took quite a different path.
“Back when I was training it was maybe a couple of years before we went on the wards and most of my clinical work was done in the Ulster Hospital.
“At that point I thought I might like to do haematology and I did an extra year of that, but later, I decided that General Practice appealed to me more.”
That extra year did benefit her future career however, giving her an insight into the importance of relationship building between a doctor and their patients.
She said that type of area – like GP work – enabled her to ‘get to really know the patients and their family’ over the time of their treatment and beyond, unlike specialisms like surgery.
Dr Craig leaves a profession that has changed much since she began more than three decades ago.
“Thirty five years ago it was very different from what it is now,” she reflects, acknowledging modern issues with securing GP appointments experienced since the global Covid pandemic.
“It has definitely changed quite a bit but I think it’s because the services are not able to cope with the increased challenges they face today,” she said.
She conceded many of those challenges emerged post-Covid, and continue today since that unprecedented period in recent history.
Dr Craig’s calling to help others remains strong within her and within the practice.
“Everyone in the system wants to do their very best but it’s difficult within the constraints,” she said, which is a far cry from her early years when doctors had more time with patients.
“Years ago, we would have been able to go to the funerals of patients,” she revealed. “But really over time that has become less and less possible and now we would be rarely able to, if at all.”
She also pointed out that nowadays GPs regularly have ‘contacts’ with at least twice the number of those recommended by the BMA.
Up to her retirement, Dr Craig could have either seen or spoken to on the phone close to 60 to 70 patients per day, but that was required to meet the demand – largely driven by improved health outcomes.
She said the modern GP practice is ‘somewhat of a victim of its own success perhaps, because people are living longer with more complex needs’. Those living longer present challenges on a system already involving increased monitoring by GPs of patients, she added.
Now looking forward to the next phase of her life, Dr Craig said she will miss the many patients she has got to know over the years.
“It’s been amazing, the number of cards I’ve received from people who say I’ve looked after four generations of family,” she said.
