Last updated at 11:18, Friday, 20 July 2012

FOR Isabella Boulton, being a medical secretary is about more than just typing. During the latest installation of her series documenting life behind the scenes at Furness General Hospital, EMMA PRESTON joined Isabella to find out why she feels a very personal connection with every patient on the hospital’s oncology ward

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WALKING into Isabella Boulton’s office, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d entered a tiny, but very well-organised, library archive.

Lining the walls from floor to ceiling are shelves filled with files and folders, all sectioned into fastidiously-labelled categories.

Looking around, I can’t help but think immediately of the phrase, “A place for everything and everything in its place”.

But for Isabella, FGH medical secretary of the oncology department, this level of organisation is essential to making sure she gets everything she needs done, in the right order, before sending each file, folder or document back where it belongs.

“It’s just a system I’ve adapted as I’ve gone along,” Isabella explains.

“I think every medical secretary has a different job and their own way of doing things – the girl in A and E, for example, will do things differently to me.”

Isabella, who has worked for the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust for 30 years, has been a medical secretary in various areas and departments at FGH.

She took up the oncology role in 2006, and the job certainly keeps her on her toes.

Booting up her computer so she can show me how patient notes are laid out, while being careful not to let me see any individual’s details, Isabella begins to describe how her job works.

Her routine tasks seem to form a weekly “cycle”.

Every Friday, three consultant clinical oncologists from Preston come to run clinics at FGH, seeing up to 45 patients between them.

For every patient, notes will be recorded by the doctor onto a dictation device, and it is Isabella’s job to make sure they get typed up, as well as typing any follow-up letters.

As a result, her Thursdays are usually spent preparing for Friday’s patients – setting out like letterheads and layouts which can be done in advance.

Throughout Friday, Isabella will regularly visit her consultants to pick up used tapes and drop off new ones, before returning to her office to type as much as possible.

Mondays are usually spent finishing off patient notes from two of Friday’s doctors while Tuesday is spent doing the third’s.

It is a huge amount of work, letters can be anything up to two pages long.

For all Friday’s patients, two sets of notes have to be printed and filed – one to be returned to Preston and another to stay at FGH.

Isabella says: “Sometimes I come in on a Monday and I just think ‘good grief’ – because there’s two sets of notes for each patient it can look a bit daunting in here.

“It’s a good job I love typing.

“I’ve been told you can see the steam coming off the keyboard as I type.”

After completing this huge task, Isabella will spend Wednesdays typing patient notes from clinics run by a Royal Lancaster Infirmary doctor who visits Furness General every Monday, seeing up to another 15 patients.

It sounds a never-ending, arduous task, especially considering how Isabella will often take on extra typing work to help her fellow secretaries.

But she clearly loves what she does, showing a huge amount of enthusiasm and passion for her job as she talks me through the role.

“I’m thinking about what I’m typing all the time,” Isabella explains, “I definitely feel a connection with the patients. “ I went through a time where I found it really hard – you’re only human – but I do deal with it better now and I am able to enjoy what I do.

“You see people from the start of their journey – even ‘though you don’t see the person directly, you get to know them through their notes.

“It’s hard to explain, but you are affected by every patient – it stays with you.”

Isabella says she is able to further develop that relationship with some, as she is regularly called upon to deal with patients on a one-to-one basis.

Although it is not her job to organise appointments, she often takes calls from patients who ring up having lost their cards or forgotten their details – or she will give them a call if a slot has been arranged for them at short notice.

And, Isabella adds, she can often be the first point of call for patients or family members who stop by to ask questions, request a chat with a doctor or nurse or just to find out how to get more information about their cancer treatment.

“I do have contact with the patients when they come in for clinics,” she says.

“Patients pop in and see me sometimes, and I do feel like my role does help them, especially when you’ve got people coming in upset.

“You’ve got to be compassionate, because patients are sometimes understandably fraught because of the nature of what they’re going through. “You’ve got to understand how they feel and you do come to do that.”

It is being able to provide this type of support that makes Isabella so happy to be right at the heart of the oncology department, as opposed to other medical secretaries who are often based a bit further from the clinics they cover.

Isabella explains: “I feel like, because I’m right here on the ward, I can help out in different ways.

“I don’t just do what’s expected of me, you can’t draw a line – you’ll do whatever you can to try and help those patients.

“You just feel like you’re part of a family here. I’m right where I need to be.”

First published at 11:17, Friday, 20 July 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk