Nominated by: Claudia Krause
Dr Lynne Gilbert has been a passionate proponent and outstanding ambassador for Reproductive Healthcare of the highest quality for 31 years and shows no signs of slowing down. While she could have easily retired several years ago (and returned to a more leisurely pace if so desired), she has continued to work-full time as Clinical Lead for Reproductive Health. She has been innovative on how to maintain the highest quality of training for staff working over a large geographical area. When virtual meetings still seemed unattainable, she devised a monthly Newsletter and a monthly Case Scenario where she shared latest information in contraception and provided food for thought and education to staff working at multiple disparate locations at different times. This highly successful and appreciated scheme has been copied by other specialties within the trust and is read and commented on well beyond its original target audience throughout East Anglia.
Her dedication to making use of the local electronic patient record system by creating comprehensive, yet easy to use templates has helped to further consistent clinical care, as evidenced in outstanding results in local and national contraception audits. These templates have been adopted throughout the trust, covering all East Anglia. They are shortly due to be replaced by a novel interactive version with a didactic element, on which Dr Gilbert is working currently.
As a trainer, she has been often noted often for her outstanding teaching skills. She has also shown exceptional dedication to forward LARC training of all integrated nursing staff within iCaSH Cambridgeshire to the highest standard, resulting in an unusually high percentage of coil fitters among nurses in our area.
Coil fitters employed by iCaSH Cambridgeshire, including nursing staff, are trained in transvaginal ultrasound for device location, thanks to Dr Gilbert. When no suitable national ultrasound course was available, she devised a training scheme herself, including several sessions of theory, practical training with a model and supervised practice with patients. This highly innovative scheme is to be rolled out throughout the trust which covers contraception for East Anglia and other areas north of London. This has been instrumental to trust wide acquisition of new ultrasound machines, which will not provide high quality 3D imaging, but will also facilitate integration of community Gynaecology care into regional services, which is anticipated in the near future in a move to further improve patient care.
While working tirelessly in the above areas she has also been active in various committees, including the trust wide Medicines and Safety Governance Group and the Clinical Systems Standardisation Group, and nationally in the FSRH Clinical Standards Committee, and the Integrated Sexual Health Information Group. Her work ethic and expertise have been exemplary if not unparalleled.
Despite the demands on her time, she has remained a humble and invariably approachable and interested clinician and colleague, passing on her enthusiasm for Reproductive Health without fail.
Throughout the COVID pandemic she has been working tirelessly in adjusting services and providing guidance for best possible care, providing both leadership through advice and example. Despite being in the at high risk for COVID group by age alone, she never missed a day’s work and in fact sacrificed some of her annual leave to help with service bottle necks in reproductive Health.
Dr Lynne Gilbert was born 1954. Before finding her calling medicine, she made a little academic detour with a non-medical undergraduate degree in 1975 from Cambridge. She then spent 5 years at the University of Bristol, first in the Department of Education, then in the Department of Botany, where she studied the green hydra symbiosis.
After a year in the Department of Agricultural Science at Oxford University, she returned to Cambridge where she graduated in Medicine in 1985. She continued to work locally as house surgeon, research assistant, senior house officer, and clinical assistant while also raising a family of three children.
Through the years
In 1990 she became a Clinical Assistant at the Family Planning Clinic in Cambridge. From then on she devoted her professional life to Reproductive Health and Reproductive Health training. She obtained her DFSRH in 1991, when it was still called “Joint Certificate in Contraception”. She has been a registered DFSRH trainer for many years, and a Fellow of the Faculty since 2007.
Through various provider changes and promotions, she finally rose to the rank of Associate Clinical Specialist and became Clinical Lead in Reproductive Health for iCaSH Cambridgeshire in 2010, a position which she holds to this day.
In the meantime, she served 6 years as regional adviser and assessor of the FSRH of the RCOG for the East Anglian Deanery. In 2012 she became a member of the FSRH Clinical Standards Committee, where she also was vice-chair for some time. In 2013 she became a member of the Integrated Sexual Health Information Group and obtained a Postgraduate Award in Education at Keele University.
Chris Wilkinson has recently retired from medical practice. His entire professional career was dedicated to SRH and the FSRH, beginning active work for the FSRH as secretary of the clinical and scientific committee in 1995, being a Council member and culminating in becoming FSRH President for 5 years from 2011-2016. Chris is an ardent advocate for women's healthcare and even though he embraced integration of sexual health services, he was a staunch advocate for the importance of specialist SRH and the fact that this should never be lost within the auspices of STI management alone. He became President of FSRH and campaigned for the availability and accessibility of holistic women's care, incorporating reproductive rights, contraception and sexual health and community Gynaecology. Prior the Chris's Presidency the profile of FSRH was relatively low amongst high-profile decision-making bodies. Chris in association with the CEO Jane Hatfield decided to invest in an external affairs team who now work to raise the profile of the FSRH with Government and Department of Health and external partnerships especially with the RCOG, RCGP and RCN. It was under Chris's leadership that the FSRH applied for, and were accepted for, membership of the AOMRC which has led to the FSRH being seen as a key influencing medical organisation.
Dr Azmy Birdi has been the Gynaecology & Women's Health Lead at Cookham Medical Centre for 21 years. She has been the principal coil fitter, fits implants, and undertakes difficult smears as well as polyp removals and removal of IUDs with lost threads, saving patient visits to the hospital and secondary care referrals. She has expanded this service to other practices in Maidenhead which has been a boon and blessing for patients who otherwise face long waiting lists for the Family Planning Clinic and have to travel out of area.
Dr Rebecca French has an impressive track record in carrying out sexual and reproductive health research of the highest policy relevance. In the last two decades she has led several landmark studies. In her doctoral studies, Rebecca created, developed, and tested ‘My Way’, a novel digital intervention aimed at helping women to choose the best contraception for themselves. The intervention was individually tailored and required users to weight their preferences on such criteria as safety, acceptability and effectiveness which was combined with evidence on contraceptive-related outcomes to provide scores for each contraceptive method. ‘My Way’ was one of the first digital contraceptive method decision tools and was subsequently adopted by fpa and Brook Advisory Service as ‘My Contraceptive Tool’. The tool received much positive feedback for both healthcare professionals and those seeking support with their contraceptive options.