The following Blog was previously published by Sarah in a series of tweets (@smizz) and is published here with her kind permission. Thanks Sarah!

Ah, my GP is flipping amazing. I can’t explain how good it really is to have someone who knows you & your medical conditions & what matters – someone who just, like, knows this without ever looking back at the records. Someone who sees a longer & bigger picture.

Sometimes we have disagreements on what the longer picture looks like. In the beginning we’d argue. But he was the only GP at the time who decided to take responsibility for me. Most let me jump from GP to GP. But after every test he’d say, “you do this & you come back to me”

I didn’t know at the time the benefits of having continuous care. I was young & impatient. But now I really get it. Today he instantly knew I had an infection (cuz he knows what my normal is), he prescribed me more stuff cuz of a previous diagnosis to help with current sickness

I whined about my leg being numb esp when I run around 5K & how I wanna run half a marathon & I can’t get past 10K (which is still a HUGE mile marker for me). I said all of my friends can run a (half) marathon & I can’t! & he was like:

“Not all of your friends Sarah. I can’t run a half marathon & I’m your friend.” It sounds proper Cheesy to write but also it felt really genuine.

He asked me about PhD work, what Prague & Japan was like. He told me about a beautiful Japanese animation he watched the other night on Amazon Prime. Even Googled it. I gave him Japanese weird tasting Kit-Kats & he seemed pretty made-up by my gesture.

Then I went on my way, not before he gave me his wise-words full of living life & selfcare wisdom as I went to leave. Dude has his moments as a proper philosophical guru. Then of course, he made sure – as per – that I come back to him to check-in in a few weeks.

GP’s will NEVER be replaced esp by apps. And we need to make sure we take care of them, as they take care of us because they’re the backbone of the NHS and the community. And my GP turns out to also hold me up when I feel like I’m falling down. I know they do this for everyone.