School of Health & Wellbeing

Karen Penman tells us about her varied role in General Practice and Primary Care, the songwriter whose words and music mean most to her, and getting married in a treetop...

 

Tell us a bit about what you do in IHW

I currently work as the administrator for the Scottish School of Primary Care as well as being the research administrator for two studies within General Practice and Primary Care – the MAP Study (Multimorbidity in Arthritis and Persistent Musculoskeletal Pain) and the MAFRICAEE Study (Multimorbidity in Africa: Increasing Understanding of the Patient Experience and Epidemiology).

What do you enjoy about your role?

Having a few different roles means two days are never the same – one day I could be organising a conference and liaising with the venue about the set up and the next attending meetings and taking minutes.

What are the challenges?

The biggest challenge has to be adapting to home working over the past year. It’s not something I’ve done in the past a lot so to do this on a permanent basis has been a big adjustment. I definitely miss the office environment and my co-workers and look forward to getting back into the office at some point.

What is the best thing about working in IHW?

I’ve always enjoyed working with the people in my department and meeting the many interesting people who work there.

Tell us something we might not know about you, or would surprise us.

I got married in Cape Town in 2018 in a tree top hotel. It was only meant to be myself and my partner and son eloping but it turned into a slightly bigger event with 30 guests. Happy times.

When or where are you happiest?

On holiday with family and friends enjoying good food and wine in the sun. I’ve been lucky enough to visit a lot of great places and before lockdown we met a family friend from South Africa in Budapest for a few days, we had an amazing time and made some great memories.

Do you have a favourite quote or saying, or mantra by which you try to live your life?

I’m a huge George Michael fan so lots of his lyrics are special to me including: "Be good to yourself 'cause nobody else has the power to make you happy."

If you would like to appear in "5 minutes with...", do please get in touch (jane.goodfellow@glasgow.ac.uk)! We aim to alternate professional services and research/teaching staff profiles, and feature colleagues from across a wide range of roles and grades within our institute. 

---

First published: 21 September 2020