09/03/2023
Dr. Graham’s Retirement
To all of the patients at Crookston Medical Centre
It is with a heavy heart that I have decided to retire from the practice at Crookston Medical Centre. I graduated in Medicine at Glasgow University in 1983 but since I qualified as a fully fledged GP in 1987 I have been a GP Partner – initially with Dr. WM Walker and partners at 10 Hillington Road South and latterly as a GP Partner at Crookston Medical Centre. I am very proud to have set up our current GP Practice with the help of my friend and colleague Dr. James Barnes. We were delighted that so many patients at our previous practice in Hillington stayed with us throughout our transition to our “new home” at Crookston. There are so many people to thank for their help in supporting this venture, not least of all our kind and loyal patients.
It has been a roller coaster of a journey and I can’t thank everyone enough – from our doctors, our wonderful Practice Manager, our great team of nurses and receptionists and our exceptional Health Visiting staff and of course our patients – for making my career so emotionally rewarding.
I hope I have helped a lot of our people through some of the most difficult and critical points in their life – the joys of childbirth (and the traumas), the concerns of raising children, the diagnosis and treatment of serious illnesses and the complexities of life. It has been a huge privilege to assist in the healthcare of our patients and their extended families over so many years. I have learned so much and appreciated so much warmth and affection throughout my career from (nearly) everyone I have encountered.
I would also like to say a special thank you to all of the young doctors and nurses that have come through our practice in the last 22 years. I have learned as much from all of them as they have learned from me. I am truly delighted that our doctors: Gary Watson, Siobhan Balmer, Stella McMillan and Adrian Hazell, who have all been trainees in some form in our practice, will continue in the partnership at Crookston Medical Centre. Our Training Status for young doctors has been enhanced and extended as Drs. Watson, Hazell and McMillan are all now accredited GP Trainers as well. I will leave you in their more than capable hands to continue the ethos of care, compassion and very high level skills that we have tried to foster in the practice.
In looking after our great group of patients their mutual care and respect for our GPs, nurses and staff is never taken for granted and always appreciated. I am also delighted to announce that they have been joined by Dr. Lynsey Webster – who will be working to assist them and our Practice Nurse Heather Morrow.
I would also like to say a special thank you to the patients who have attended the surgery regularly with alcohol and drug dependence. Although they get a very hard time in the press – they are also some of the most charismatic, entertaining, challenging but rewarding people that I have had the privilege to encounter. I have always tried to be understanding and respectful and I feel this has been reciprocated.
In recent years we have had so many non-indigenous Scottish patients register with our practice. While they present their own challenges I have learned so much about other creeds, cultures, religions and races. In general, their good grace and cheer has been a tonic for me and I hold so many of them in very high esteem for their warmth and adaptability to a new life in Scotland.
I am sure most of you are also aware that over the last year I started working part-time and I have probably made more comebacks than Elvis. I have also offered to do the odd locum session in the practice after June of this year if needed – so you may just see me again.
However, I will sign off now – I still plan to work hard until the end of March of this year, so please DO NOT make an appointment to say cheerio!
Instead, please feel free to pass feedback of your thoughts about me – good and bad - through our practice page or in the practice at our reception. The staff have a book for any comments or messages – that you would like to leave. Please include your name and contact details if you do so - as I will get round to answering all of them BUT I will be taking a long break (3 months) to try and re-energise (as I am getting old) – so it may not be until the summer!
It is often said that you reap what you sow – but being a doctor has been my life for the last 40 years and I really feel I have reaped much more than I have sown. Thank you from the bottom of my heart – to serve the people of the south west of Glasgow is and has been the honour of MY lifetime.
Best Wishes and Good Health
Dr. William Graham
