Dr Phil Peverley has always been a bellwether for general practice, and never more so than this year. Fellow GPs nominated him for his ‘humour and honesty’, for ‘telling it how it is’ and for being a ‘GP hero’.
The Sunderland GP’s writing has always connected strongly with readers of Pulse, but his year saw an outpouring of affection for our long-time columnist as he recounted the end of his ‘love affair’ with general practice.
‘I hate this bloody job,’ he said in June in a blistering column that detailed how the relentless stress of being a GP had finally contributed to his ending up in hospital. The column brought 150 comments of support online and was probably one of the most talked-about columns of his distinguished writing career.
As fellow Pulse columnist, Dr Tony Copperfield wrote: ‘Phil somehow manages to articulate – with wisdom and wit – that, even if the job isn’t really killing us, it sure feels like it is.’ And this is the power of Dr Peverley’s writing. A a time of rock-bottom morale for the profession and many GPs facing burnout, he shows the human cost of the pressure on GPs; the sad reality of what the day job is doing to the foot soldiers of the profession.
As befits such a great writer, Dr Peverley has been nominated for a number of awards this year, with both the British Society of Magazine Editors and the Professional Publishers Association shortlisting him for ‘Columnist of the Year’.
Dr Peverley continues to take a well-deserved break from writing for Pulse. He is much missed, but the profession wishes him well as he recovers.
