Philippa Bolton
I am a consultant liaison psychiatrist whose career took a deviation a few years ago into the world of physical symptom management. I’m one of the very few doctors in the UK who work full time in this area and treat people with a range of chronic pain and functional disorders. 10 years ago, along with our excellent gynaecology colleague, we set up a chronic pelvic pain service, one of the few in the UK that specialises in non surgical interventions for women with chronic pelvic pain. I have a keen interest in understanding how women are treated and mistreated by the medical profession which is how I have ended up speaking at this conference. I worked for 10 years in the Northern clinical network promoting liaison psychiatry and raising awareness of functional disorders and more recently have become one of the directors of undergraduate clinical studies at the new Sunderland medical school.