Role Models: Heart Failure & Imaging

I’m extremely lucky to work with a team of amazing colleagues who have supported me throughout my career.

I’m Kate, originally a slightly nomadic northerner who is now settled in Leeds after training in Newcastle and completing cardiology training in West Yorkshire. I’d originally wanted to be a geriatrician and came to the Leeds General Infirmary in 2005 for 6 months to do a bit of cardiology before applying to what was then an NTN in geriatrics. I’d always enjoyed cardiology but had thought that I wasn’t anywhere near good enough to be a cardiologist until my supervisor in my senior SHO job, Dr Catherine Dickinson encouraged me to think again. Over the next few months she gently persuaded me that I was good enough and allowed me to gain experience in echo and in the labs. This meant that I was able to apply for a locum registrar job in York and was subsequently appointed a training number in the midst of MTAS in 2007.

I’m now a consultant in heart failure and echo at the Leeds general infirmary. I also am part of the obstetric cardiology team. I’m enjoying the leadership and managerial role as a consultant much more than I thought I would and can easily see myself slipping into some more senior leadership roles later in my career.

I’m married to a GP who I met on a post A levels holiday when I was 18 and have 2 children, my daughter 11 (who is all legs and hair) and my son 5 (a tiny ball of energy).

I’m extremely lucky to work with a team of amazing colleagues who have supported me throughout my career. I love my job and owe a huge amount of that job satisfaction to the encouragement and mentorship the Catherine has provided me with throughout the last 15 years. I’m hugely enthusiastic about nurturing trainees who want to become cardiologists as a way of “paying it forward”.