Dr Punam Krishan
Hello and thank you for visiting my site.
Hello and thank you for visiting my site.
I have been a doctor for 13 years and currently work as a full time NHS GP in Glasgow. I trained across many different specialties including rehabilitation medicine, general surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, emergency medicine, endocrinology, care of the elderly and psychiatry. These jobs gave me the foundation to achieve my dream of becoming a GP, which I had since attending Notre Dame High School before reading medicine at the University of Glasgow
Coupled with my GP work, I feed my passion for teaching and inspiring medical students and junior doctors as a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Glasgow. I also work as a medical appraiser, a role which facilitates the professional development of doctors working in the UK as per the GMC guidelines.
I am a qualified life coach and see clients on a one-to-one basis offering bespoke lifestyle consultations and create management plans depending on their specific problem areas.
I have always had an interest in human stories. So much can be learnt from each other and from one another’s experiences. I understand and daily witness how complex healing is. It is most definitely not a black and white picture. I therefore strive to understand what makes people “tick”. I respect and learn with them about their belief systems, cultures and backgrounds. All of this informs and influences not just our health behaviours but also our health outcomes. Sadly in the NHS, we GPs currently work in a 10-15 minute consultation model which is not enough time to even scratch the surface let alone dig deep to find the root cause of the problem.
With more time, more focused attention and a targeted lifestyle prescription, my clients have turned their health stories around, finding alignment in all areas of their life as a result. We are human beings with sometimes emotional, psychological, financial, social, physical, historical blocks and if left unresolved, can negatively impact our health and wellbeing. A pill will only help for so long.
I set this service up purely out of frustration because I couldn’t give all my patients this lengthy one-to-one experience without it compromising the care of others and also myself. So whilst I continue to work as a GP, I also enjoy seeing and helping people privately in my clinic.
As a writer, broadcaster and TV presenter I have been fortunate to share key health and lifestyle messages to a wider audience than is possible in my daily work as a doctor. I see these opportunities as an extension of my role as a health educator. I have contributed articles for The Times, The Herald, The Guardian, The Scotsman, I News, Huffington post, Pulse, WW amongst many more. I also contribute content and videos for BBC The Social as well as feature on the GP phone ins on BBC Scotland. I am the presenter and medical expert on BBC One series Laid Bare which was my first time doing proper telly, so it’s been a steep learning curve!
I am proud to be a trustee and Glasgow regional director for the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine. I am also a graduate of the AFMCP course and have completed my NLP practitioner training.
Lifestyle medicine focuses on 5 main components which influence health – physical activity, nutrition, community, sleep and stress management. Learning how to weave these into the everyday is how many chronic illnesses can be kept away. Though not always easy, I recognise that illness doesn’t spare anyone but we can do a lot more than we think to help keep disease away for as long as we can. I combine my medical knowledge with my lifestyle medicine expertise to manage my patients holistically.
I have been working as a GP for 9 years and throughout this period I have recognised that around 70-80% of chronic diseases presenting to primary care are secondary to lifestyle habits which are reversible. So rather than solely focusing on the management and treatment of a condition (which is of course still important) I started opening up discussions opportunistically with people to review their lifestyle habits. Whilst pharmaceutical drugs are helpful in many situations, drugs are not always the solution. With the rise of conditions like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, mental health problems, obesity and even some cancers, it is more important than ever to be looking into the root causes of these conditions and treating those also. I recognise that what my patients need more of is my time, not more pills. They need their doctor to delve deeper with them to identify when and how the problem developed and what can be done to change its course. Early detection is vital but we tend to do is wait until a crisis takes place to seek for help.
I specialise in lifestyle medicine and incorporate this into my everyday GP practice. I see my role as more than just giving out pills, rather I enjoy educating and inspiring my patients also to take more ownership of their health journeys, and help them become more informed and educated about their wellbeing. Looking at the whole person is what matters to me the most and helping people see that certain illnesses can be prevented or reversed and being able to help facilitate this, gives me immense satisfaction.
I am the co-founder of a group called Glasgow Wellbeings. We, two GPs, set it up in 2017 out of shared frustrations and time limitations within our NHS GP capacities. We wanted to be able to inspire and educate more people about lifestyle medicine and how to stay well. This is a community service, where we do free monthly meet-ups for the Glasgow community and we share tips, health hacks and general advice on different pillars of wellbeing. Please see our website for more information.
The most important role I have is that of being a mum to my little boy. I met with some pretty serious health complications after he was born and shortly after his birth, so did he. I found myself, for the first time, as a patient – a vulnerable person on the other side of the consultation table. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to endure but I worked through it thanks to him and to my village of family and friends who supported us. This is where I learnt first-hand how complex healing is and this is also the point of my life where the power of lifestyle medicine and the appreciation of mind-body connection began in my personal health journey. As a patient you learn just how fragile life can be, how unexpectedly illness can strike you. As a patient also however, you have to try so hard to find the one thing that will pull you through, motivate you to work harder and to get better. For me, that was my son.
I also have a little fur-baby, a cockapoo named Simba and before him, I didn’t really have an appreciation of how truly incredible animals are, especially in the context of health and healing. Stroking and cuddling him just makes my troubles melt away! Eternally grateful to these two for being the best life teachers!
