Lorraine Petersen, Medical Director and Consultant in Palliative Care

Lorraine kindly shared her experience of working for the Charity:

“I worked here in 2004, but I’ve been here permanently for over 17 years, since 2008.

What does a day look like for you as a Medical Consultant?

Every day is different, but every day there will be a clinical component; working with the nurses and hearing about patients. I’m often giving advice for more complex cases. There is some patient contact, contact with other professionals, some work on a policy or teaching. I essentially have two roles, it’s broadly clinical and then there’s non-clinical tasks too. As a medical director, sometimes I don’t get to see patients and I do miss that. So, if I’m going more than two weeks without seeing a patient, I turn up on the ward!

What do you enjoy about your role?

I think it’s connecting with people and being able to offer something. We are different because we offer time. We’re offering our expertise but in a way that is very patient-focused. We are not necessarily telling people what to do, instead we’re making what we hope are wise and knowledgeable suggestions. Having experienced bereavement myself and also as a doctor, I think all of us are offering not only our skills in our roles – we’re offering something of ourselves.

Why did you choose to work in a Hospice?

It’s a complicated question. My driving force was because I wanted to partake in medicine that was humane. As a doctor, using my skills at this time of life can be very joyous but it’s also very thoughtful and at times complicated.

Technology has changed, our services change and we have all these different treatment options; but people are still the same and our aims remain the same.

What’s the biggest difference that you think we make?

I think that the difference we make is in our individual care for individual patients. But, we’re involved in many different services and there’s a lot of work behind the scenes.

Coming from the old hospice (in Mill Road) you’ve seen the old and new. What do you think has linked the two together?

I think the care – whether you’re in a fancy building or seeing people at home, it hasn’t changed. I also think the ethos of the Charity; even when at home and on Zoom, we have that sense of community. It’s broader than just the people in the organisation, we’re part of Cambridgeshire. Then, the third thing is our willingness to say ‘yes’ to change. We have not stopped changing since leaving the NHS in 2015- and change is still good! Challenging, but still good.

Do you have a memory which evokes joy from a hospice moment?

I do have a memory of a trainee doctor who is now a consultant. Those are lovely memories, seeing trainees that we worked with over the years now being consultants. I’ve also got a lovely memory of him with his guitar at Christmas.

What do you think the junior doctors take with them?

I think, alongside their learning, they often take the absolute joy of working within our team. So many of them come back and say, “I felt so supported, the work we were doing is very poignant.” They had lots of emotions, but they’ll always take away how lovely it was to be in the team.

What would you say to somebody who is facing hospice care?

It’s all about timing. We can be absolutely the best service, but it can be the wrong time. So, if somebody is being offered hospice services, I’d say go with an open mind and find out.

What still surprises you about hospice care?

I’m still surprised and amazed by how people respond to living with a life-threatening illness, how people respond to adversity and just how amazing people really are”.

---

If you would like to work at Arthur Rank Hospice Charity please see our current vacancies: https://careers.arhc.org.uk/