Dr Tony Fincham

GP
MA, PhD, MBBS, MRCS, LRCP, DRCOG, MRCGP

About Dr Tony Fincham

I qualified as a Doctor from Guy’s Hospital, University of London. My hospital and GP training was completed in Kent. I was a Senior Partner at a rural GP practice in West Kent for thirty years and now work as a GP on a sessional basis.

My clinical skills include all aspects of general practice with an emphasis on a holistic approach.

Publications centre on my interest in Thomas Hardy and include Hardy the Physician (2008) and Exploring Thomas Hardy’s Wessex (2016).

My partner and I have four children between us and an increasing number of grandchildren. In my spare time, I plant and care for trees, walk our Dalmatian George, ski when I get the chance and I remain heavily involved with The Thomas Hardy Society.

Video transcript

I'm Tony Fincham. I'm a GP. I’ve been a GP for quite a long time. And I mean, with general practitioners, we are generalists, so we do a little bit of everything.

My approach to general practice tends to be holistic. I tend to want to look at the patient as a whole, the problem as a whole. And I've also trained in interpretive psychotherapy, so I tend to be looking at the subtext as well as the immediate presentation from the patient.

And I suppose that, because I'm older, and I've done a lot of looking after nursing homes and residential homes, I probably particularly specialise in old people, but in the past, my specialist was obstetrics and gynaecology.

So, I've got a wide, wide interest in a bit of everything to do with medicine.

Well, I did my medical training originally at Guy’s Hospital and then after that, it was all in Kent. I worked in South East Kent; Folkestone, Dover, Ashford. And then I did my GP training in Tunbridge Wells, in that area. But I have a deep-rooted background in general practice because both my parents were GPs. And so, and in those days the surgery was attached to the house. So, from the age of three, I sort of grew up in a GP surgery and in fact, I then went into practice in the practice they'd been in, so there was, sort of, Finchams doctoring there for nearly 60 years!

I think Benenden is a very nice place to work. I mean, one, it's a modern building which isn't particularly crowded. It's nice and spacious and it's a very relaxed atmosphere. So, it’s the ability to spend time with the patient, to listen to them and to try to help them.

Well, I've got a particular interest in literature. I've actually got a Phd in English as well as being qualified in medicine. And my particular interest is Thomas Hardy. I'm the Vice president and currently Vice chairman of the Thomas Hardy Society, which functions down in Dorset. I also like countryside, like walking. Where we live, we've got about five acres which we're gradually turning into woodland. So, lots of outside interests and skiing as well as long as I can keep doing that.

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