I trained at St Bartholomew’s Hospital London, and my post graduate years started on the medical and oncology professorial units at Barts and later I was a medical registrar on the professorial units at Homerton hospital in the East End of London.

I worked on busy rotas on-call around East London gaining further experience in general surgery, medicine, medical obstetrics, paediatrics, accident and emergency, Coronary Care and ITU. I completed a year’s GP training and returned to hospital care in care of the elderly for one more year, before becoming a partner at a large teaching practice in the East End of London

For nine years I helped develop the practice and became the executive partner and built a Health Mall. The practice has obstetric beds at the local hospital and I was part of that rota.

I became the consultant to Redbridge and Waltham Forest Unit for physically disabled. This also involved a 15 bed unit which was to enable people to live in their own homes. We also provided medical cover to a large unit for severe mental handicapped patients.

In 1991 the Allum practice became the local lead for a Government Initiative called fundholding. In 1993 I left the practice to set up The Fundholders’ Support Agency, which became the largest mutilfund type organisation in the UK.

This involved grouping practices together and managing their contracts for medical services and handling the accounting. From this I developed the Outpatient Diagnostic and Treatment Centre service, the Consultant Provider Agency. This became the largest private provider to the NHS in London. Glaxo bought a stake in our companies. The change in Government banned fundholding in 1999, and we were able to cleanly wind up the businesses in 2000. These businesses put the family on a sound financial footing.

In 1993 I was also running a small practice in Hertfordshire. I employed a nurse and an assistant GP. This village practice achieved all its targets and achieved top scores in the Quality and Outcome Framework. We trained medical students. I covered our out of hours patient calls and then helped to develop the local out of hours GP co-operative.

In 2002 I took on medical services for HMP The Mount. This post was part of a reform of medical services in prisons. This was followed by a successful tender to provide medical services again to that prison in 2007. In 2006-8 I worked at HMP Wandsworth, the largest prison in the UK with 1,800 prisoners and a fast turnover of patients, as it serves the courts. I left as I had worries that quality of care could not be delivered by the new social enterprise, and 7 months later the Primary Care trust took the contract back: Secure Care was in liquidation. By that time I was in Australia.

In 2007, before the credit crunch, I sold my surgery in the UK. Our children were grown up and successfully launched in their own lives so we looked at working abroad. In January 2009 I started full time work at The Doctors, a polyclinic in Cairns Australia with pharmacy, physiotherapy, radiology and CT scanner services in the same building.

Australia 2009-

Here I have learnt about the Australian system of health care, indigenous health care, local diseases and I have increased my practical experience of injuries, fractures and clinical emergencies. I continue to teach medical students here (JCU).

Indonesia 2010

My first post with InternationalSOS was five weeks at Inco Hospital Soroako Sulawesi in November 2010, gaining experience in developing country medicine, tropical dieases and an understanding of the risks associated with mining, processing, hydroelectric dam construction and its associated reforestation projects.

See http://gerardbulger.com.au