GP Blog: Isaac Lee James Final-Year Medical Student

My name is Isaac Lee James, and I am a medical student at University College Cork, now entering my final year of study. I recently completed a two-week elective placement at the Medicentre Wilton Road, a GP practice in Bishopstown, Cork. Under the supervision of Dr Tony Lynch and Dr Meenakshi Uppal, two exceptionally experienced GPs, I was given every opportunity to learn, observe, and engage in the life of a working general practice. Over those two weeks, my perception of what it means to be a GP was completely altered.

Like many of my peers, general practice had always seemed an appealing career path, but my perception of the role was naive. I had absorbed the rhetoric, from both media portrayals and conversations within the medical field, that the life of a GP was relatively “easy”: a 9–5 schedule, Monday to Friday, littered with minor ailments and the occasional referral to secondary care. Based on these anecdotes, I began to lose interest in the specality, assuming it lacked variety or much of a challenge. What I discovered on my first day could not have been further from the truth.

At 9:14 a.m. that Monday, I learned that both Dr Lynch and Dr Uppal had already been in the practice since 8:00 a.m., and that on some evenings they might not leave until 8:00 p.m. if their work required that of them. I had yet to observe a single consultation, and already my first assumption about general practice had been dismantled. As I sat in on appointments throughout my placement, two observations stayed with me. First, patients often present with multiple concerns, only revealing the most significant one in the closing moments of the consultation (which I now know is colloquially referred to as ‘doorknob confessions’). Second, regardless of whether the issue is acute, chronic, physical, or psychological, the GP must offer the same quality of care and attention. The breadth and complexity of presentations quickly dispelled my belief that general practice lacked variety.

During my time at the Medicentre, I witnessed moments that underscored the pivotal role GPs play in their communities: a patient with who presented with neck pain breaking down to share long-buried grief; families and GPs making compassionate decisions about hospice care; follow-up consultations that revealed home life concerns affecting a child’s wellbeing. These were not fleeting interactions, they were life-altering conversations and decisions, built on trust and continuity of care.

This placement not only deepened my respect for the role of the GP but reshaped my career ambitions. I am profoundly grateful to Dr Lynch and Dr Uppal for their mentorship and them allowing me to see first-hand the responsibility, skill, and humanity that define general practice. If I can one day contribute even half as much to my community as they have to theirs, I will consider it a career well spent. I stand here now as a final year medical student, who is just a little more sure of what type of doctor they want to be. I hope to one day join the ranks of GPs in Ireland and be an anchor for my patients as they have been for theirs.