Kate Baddock on mentoring the next generation of GPs

MAS Board Member Kate Baddock and her former registrar turned colleague Destinee Macleod share the highs and lows of GP life and the valuable bond built between teacher and trainee.

Dr Kate Baddock on rural practice and mentoring Destinee

“I’d always wanted to do general practice. My first job was in outback Tasmania. I was a medical officer looking after a camp of 1,200 single men who were working for the Hydroelectric Commission. I saw a lot of groin rash! I was 26 years old and the only doctor, but I had 4 nurses, 2 ambulances, a helicopter and a pet wombat.

“Then I did my postgraduate training in the UK and worked in a lovely practice in the Forest of Dean. They offered me a partnership there, but I’d also been offered one in Australia, so my husband and I came home to New Zealand to decide. Once we got here we thought, ‘Actually, we want to be here.’

“One of the partners in the practice I’m at now, Kawau Bay Health, said, ‘It’s time we had a lady doctor up here’. So, I started as a new partner, and that was 37 years ago.

“During that time, I also did obstetrics for 20 years, whilst having 3 children of my own. Sometimes I’d be called out in the middle of the night to deliver a baby, and so I’d bundle up my own baby to take with me. That’s rural practice at its best.

“Over the years I’ve looked after sometimes 3 or 4 generations of the same family, walking alongside people’s journeys through their entire lives.

“Our practice in Warkworth is a training practice, and I’ve been teaching new doctors since 1990. I really like sharing knowledge that they’re not going to get from books because it’s born from experience.”

Learning from experience

“Young doctors these days have these algorithms and guidelines to follow. They can choose not to follow them, but they have to be very brave not to. After all, it’s hard to get into trouble following an algorithm, even if it’s not actually the best thing to do.

“I encourage young doctors to think about why a decision has been made, and I do a lot of role plays and get them out of their comfort zones. I challenge them to justify why they would use algorithms instead of justifying why they wouldn’t.

“Destinee came to do a 6-month placement at the practice because she lived locally but as the 6 months went by it was clear that she would be a good fit for us. She has a really good depth in women’s health from work she’s done in South Sudan, and a really good understanding of people, as well as being very smart and competent.

“She knows how to put people at ease and she’s really thoughtful about how she manages problems. A good clue for us on whether a doctor is managing the people ‘side of things’ is how many complaints we get. Destinee has not had one. That’s a reflection of what she’s like.”

Dr Destinee Macleod on following her dreams and working with Kate

“I come from a line of doctors – my mother and my grandmother are both doctors. I did want to do medicine from a young age, but I don’t think I really knew what was involved.

“I trained in Auckland, focusing on obstetrics and gynaecology, before heading over to Kenya, followed by Papua New Guinea and South Sudan. My husband and I spent 8 and a half years with a small organisation in South Sudan helping to establish a maternal and child hospital. It was both of our dreams to do something like that.

“I started GP training in 2023, and my first placement was at Kawau Bay Health. Kate was my supervisor for the first 6 months and I feel very lucky that was the case. She’s a very gifted doctor and very willing to teach. I learned a lot from her then and I still do.

“Kate likes to say, ‘I don’t follow guidelines, I follow the evidence.’ When you’re new to something the guidelines are all you have because you don’t have experience yet. Kate’s had so much experience and years of building knowledge upon knowledge and she’s able to instinctively draw from that to make her decisions. I think everyone moves towards that slowly, but she’s already there.

“I admire her wealth of knowledge. She’s a very skilled and compassionate doctor. She’s been in this community for so many years and the people here have such trust in her. There are so many patients who are going to be devastated when she retires.

“I really appreciate that I can knock on Kate’s door or send a message and say, ‘Hey would you mind popping in and having a look at this?’ Not every registrar has that, so I’m making the most of it while I can!”

Give governance a go

Over the years Kate has held many governance roles, from positions with Primary Health Organisations to Chair of the New Zealand Medical Association. She knows what it takes to be successful in this space and is therefore championing the new MAS Future Practitioner Director Programme, so that more medical people can do the same.

“One of the things I’ve noticed from working in governance is that, as a clinical person, you can wind up talking straight past a management person. Not only are you speaking a different language, but often you actually see the problem differently. As a result, a lot of clinicians don’t venture into the governance world because it’s really hard to get to grips with the machinations of management and bureaucracy.

“However, once you understand organisational processes and are able to communicate in management speak, you can make real progress through the information you impart, and you can help to make things happen when change is needed.

“It often feels like a step too far to take on governance roles. There’s a lot you don’t know and you might be unsure of how to increase your competence and improve your understanding. The Future Practitioner Director Programme provides a pathway to cross that divide. It’ll help enormously with managing your own business or if you want to move into organisational governance.”