DR IUEL and DR WILLIS are saying goodbye to the practice and retiring at the end of March 2017.
Dr Willis joined Bridge Street surgery in January 1987 after returning from working in a mission hospital in South Africa.
As well as doing routine General Practice, which in those days included being on call 24/7 and a lot of home visiting, he developed an interest in doing Musculoskeletal Medicine – particularly joint injections-,and also vasectomy operations.
At that time the practice also worked for the Army Base at Kirton. When the base closed, he started working part time for the new Medical School in Hull, teaching new medical students the basics of how to talk (and to listen!) to patients, and the skills needed to examine people. After a few years, he got fed up with commuting to Hull and swapped over to teaching final year students in the practice. Recently we were given the award for the best teaching team in the whole of Hull York Medical School.
He has always been interested in different sorts of patients and different sorts of medical practices and has spent time working in Zambia, New Zealand, and Denmark, as well as short bouts in other local practices.
Dr Iuel comes from Denmark and joined Bridge Street in 1988 after doing hospital jobs at Scunthorpe and Grimsby among others. She became the practice expert in Child Health (not an easy job at all), and fitting contraceptive coils, as well as doing her share of the routine work and on call, and managing the staff side of the practice.
Together, they helped to develop the modern practice that is here today. They helped to build the extension to the old building, and introduced computerised medical records, to name 2 major developments. With many excellent staff the practice has consistently come top in Patient surveys among practices in the area.
But after 30 years, it is time to make way for new thinking and younger people.
They are leaving to go to do 3months of voluntary work in a rural clinic in Zambia, dealing with the common problems of HIV and Malaria, and the less common and scary problems of snake bite and injuries from wild animals.
Personal message from Dr Willis
I want to say a huge THANK YOU to my patients. It has been a privilege to try to help many people. Some of you have shown me a wonderful example of how to cope with illness and pain and disability. You hear in the media all the time about how demanding people are, but I find this is completely opposite to my experience, which is that you have generally been very considerate of our needs, and of the needs of other patients, and very understanding when we get things wrong.
I feel so lucky to have had a job which has allowed me to build relationships with many different people over the years, and help at least a few of you. As a result, I have developed a lot of affection and huge respect for many patients of a variety of ages and sex and walks of life. I will really miss many of you.
Goodbye and Thankyou from Dr Iuel
It is with very mixed feelings that I have decided to retire. It has been a huge privilege to help look after so many of you during the last 30 years.
Thankyou for sharing your worries, symptoms and problems with me.
Thank you for laughter and tears.
Thankyou for your trust, and for the advice you have given to me.
Sorry for those times when I have fallen short of expectations and not got things right.
Hope to see you all in Tesco