In order to provide my patients with a proper service I make studying and learning more a major priority for my practice. I make sure I am continually updating my clinical and diagnostic skills.

I also regularly attend conferences, talks, seminars and workshops in order to maintain the level of expertise and clinical skills that patients deserve. The image above shows me at one of the lectures for GPs run at the Chichester Medical Education Centre at St Richard’s Hospital, which I attended every week for four years, in the process of which I got to know many of the local Consultants and Specialists, as well as a great many of the GPs in my area.

High quality medical conferences are held throughout the year and many of these are focused on the areas of medicine that our NHS find so hard to resolve. Chronic, ongoing conditions such as thyroid disorders like Hashimoto’s, neurodegenerative conditions such as the various forms of dementia, and developmental conditions that fall within the autism spectrum, and autoimmune disorders which are effecting more and more people all require a great deal more time and specialism than GPs are able to provide. The standard approach to these, and many other conditions may be woefully inadequate for the patients, who can suffer for years with insufficiently thought through treatments, or worse. I attend conferences run by experts in their field, in order to save my patients from the same unnecessary failures.

There are also now some first class online webinars in which specific subjects are discussed by people working on new or expanding areas of research. Areas such as effective and safe removal of toxic metals like aluminium, mercury or cadmium from people who have struggled for years with unexplained symptoms. Or Lyme disease and the rise in this poorly grasped issue of vector borne diseases, which are also frequently mis-diagnosed. Experts in the field of microbes, epigenetic, nutrition, functional medicine, the microbiome, specific disease entities, new and better tests for old adversaries, or new therapeutic strategies are now available through these international online conferences, as well as venue based events, and I am fortunate to have made contact with many leaders in these fields of research, from whom I continue to expand my knowledge, whether in Herbal Medicine, nutritional medicine or biochemistry and physiology. I take all the opportunities I can to upgrade my knowledge in order to truly enable recovery in my patients, many of whom have been struggling for far too long with mysterious or unexplained problems that we can now confidently say can be tackled.

Below is a list of some recent CPD events:

• Thyroid disease, new research, testing parameters and better treatment
• Alzheimer’s Disease, dementia and neurodegeneration: new research and successful treatment
• Lyme Disease and associated vector borne diseases: spread, new tests and treatments