“Connecting with people you work closely with is important”

7.30am  

What time I wake up depends on how much I’ve got going around in my head. Usually it’s about half past seven, give or take.  

We’ve got a Hungarian vizsla, called Stan. Typically, my husband walks him in the morning, and I then take him into work with me. 

8.30am

I'll arrive at work by 8.30am. My first task of the day is putting the coffee machine on. I will have looked at the diary the night before, to make sure I’m prepared. 

9am 

We have a little team talk in the morning, to pinpoint any hurdles we might have, celebrate any little wins from the day before, and set up for the day. I’ve got a practice manager, who usually handles that.  

Touching base with the team is really important. If you don’t catch up with the people that you work with, it can be quite an isolating job. You’re in a dark room with a stranger for most of your day, so connecting with people you work closely with is important. 

We’re a small team – there are only four of us, so we know each other really well. We’re an all-female practice, so I would say we are like sisters – although, the youngest would probably say that she’s got three mothers. 

9.30am  

Our practice opens at 9.30am, and between 9am and 10am, I’m triaging calls, catching up on referrals and paperwork from the day before, and quite often ordering contact lenses. We’ve got quite a number of complex contact lens patients in our practice, so if I’m going to sit and do any contact lens calculations, I’ll do that first thing in the morning, when my head is a bit fresher. 

10am 

The dog, Stan, comes into work with me pretty much every day. He sleeps in my office all morning. He has a very leisurely start to the day.  

I don’t start my clinic until 10am. We have our specialist contact lens clinics, emergency eye clinics, and dry eye clinics, and we have them interspersed throughout the day. We found that if we tried to pigeonhole any particular time to do these things, it never went to plan. It is very much taking it as it rolls. 

11am  

We try and keep one or two emergency slots in each clinic column. They are 20-minute slots, but it’s enough time, hopefully, to deal with any eventualities that may come through. Invariably, they always get filled with something, whether it’s an emergency or not. 

1pm  

I take lunch from 1pm to 2pm, and I usually spend it walking the dog. I like to get out of the practice at lunchtime, to get some fresh air, let him stretch his legs and do what he has to do.  

Back at the practice, I’ll grab a coffee and something to eat, usually noodles or salad – whatever is in the cupboard – and then get straight back into clinic. 

2pm

Clinic in the afternoon runs from 2pm until 6pm, officially. My team keeps me topped up with coffee – there’s a common theme here. We have a bean-to-cup machine at the practice, so I’m a bit of a coffee snob. I make the most of it. 

4pm 

I take a break every three or four hours, no matter how manic the clinic is. Because I’ve got the dog at work with me, I’m forced me to take a break, and I try and make sure that I get outside.  

I’m really fortunate that I’ve got an opening window in my consulting room. In the summer months, I work with the window open so that I’ve got a fresh air flow into the room. That makes such a difference. 

I’ve also got a lava lamp in the consulting room. When I’m doing slit lamp or something where I need to have reduced illumination in the room, the lava lamp bubbles away in the corner, and it’s really relaxing for the patients. 

6.30pm

I normally go home between 6pm and 7pm, because I need to get the dog fed. I’ll then make dinner for myself and my husband – probably something Asian fusion.  

8pm 

After dinner, invariably, I am in the home office for an hour or so. I’m studying for a glaucoma qualification at the moment, so a lot of my time in the evening is spent either doing coursework, writing up case records, preparing for exams, or sorting placements. I don’t have a huge amount of free time at the moment, until I finish this qualification.