Dr. Philippa Kaye

'I don't feel like myself', I hear it so many times as a family medicine doctor and always try to work out what that actually means for the patient as it means different things for different people.

But it wasn't until I became a cancer patient myself at just age 39 that I realised that in order to answer what that means one has to know oneself in the first place.

We all need to know our own normals, be that for our periods, our moods, even our poos! Only then can we know when something is changing and when to get help.

About Dr. Philippa Kaye

Dr.Philippa Kaye is a GP, author, journalist and mother.  This means that she is busy, really busy and while others may dream of long indulgent weekends, she dreams of a lie in until 8.30am – that extra hour and a half makes all the difference, ask any parent!

Philippa is one of those irritating clichés, she really did always want to be a doctor, apart from a very brief spell of aspiring to be a ballerina (also a cliché, sorry). But she has always been fascinated by science and by people and medicine is a career which thankfully combines the two. She grew up in a very large and noisy family, where everyone knows everything about everybody. This may have led to her becoming quite nosy, some people may prefer the term ‘interested’, but the truth is, she is nosy, but as a doctor this can be a great thing because a bit of nosiness helps to find out about people which may in turn affect their health.

Dr Philippa is a Londoner and only moved away for three years while studying at Downing College Cambridge, before returning to Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ medical school for her clinical training. Once qualified she started having babies all in the midst of training in paediatrics, gynaecology, care of the elderly and acute medicine, psychiatry and then general practice.  She now works as a GP in both privately and for the NHS, before running home to the chaos of a house with a husband and three children.​

Dr Philippa knows that one of the core skills of medicine is being able to translate ‘medicalese’ into English and has used this skill to write multiple books on subjects ranging from pregnancy to child health and development. Her last book Doctors Get Cancer Too is her memoir of being 39 years old, a busy dr and mother when she was diagnosed with bowel cancer and was an Amazon bestseller, while her previous book The M Word: Everything you need to know about the menopause reached number 2 in the Amazon charts. The second edition of The M word is released in Jan 2023 and she has a further book release in March entitled Breasts: An Owner’s Guide (published DK). She is the medical expert for Woman, Woman & Home, That’s Life and My Weekly Special magazines and regularly contributes to the print and online press as well as having a role as the Ann Summers sexual health GP. She is regularly seen on the sofa on television on This Morning, Talk TV and various news programmes on both radio and television.

 

Below is a link to Dr Philippa explaining what happens during cervical screening, a smear test.  The clip has been viewed worldwide more than 15.4 million times!


​https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-42774652/what-happens-during-a-smear-test

 

As with many working mums, Dr Philippa has a second job – parenthood, which truth be told is often tougher than the doctor day job! Most of her spare time is taken up with family and she is happiest cooking in her kitchen surrounding by family and friends, talking, eating and laughing, a lot; or she will be when we are out of lockdown!

Dr Philippa Kaye was once optimistically measured at 5 ft and ¾ of an inch. That ¾ of an inch is very important to her and should not be forgotten.

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Events During Perimenopause Awareness Month

  • Essential Sexual Health Tips for Everyone 35+ to Prepare for Perimenopause

    Saturday September 14th at 10am EST