You Were Never Meant To Carry This Alone

A free, honest conversation about anxiety & shame in medicine -

for doctors who are still in it, & those who've walked away

Two GPs. Two stories. One honest conversation.

Nobody talks about this in medical school. Nobody talks about it in the hospital corridors, in the consultant's office, or in the GP surgery at the end of a thirteen-hour day.

But the anxiety is there. And so is the shame.

The shame of struggling when you're supposed to be the one who helps. The shame of leaving or wanting to. The shame of what medicine asked you to become, and who you had to set aside to become it.

Dr Alison Smith and Dr Connie Kerali are two doctors who've lived this. On Thursday 25th June, they're sitting down together to have the conversation that medicine never made space for and they're inviting you to pull up a chair.

This isn't a webinar. There are no slides, no polished answers, no performance of having figured it all out. It's two women talking honestly about what it costs to be a doctor and what becomes possible when you stop carrying the silence alone.

Thursday 25th June*

19:30 - 20:15

Online - via Zoom

Cost: FREE

*Can't make it live?

Sign up anyway. We'll send you the recording link afterwards.

Anxiety & shame are two of the most universal experiences in medicine

and two of the most isolating, precisely because they go unspoken.

If you have ever felt like you were not quite enough, worried that others might find you out, or carried a quiet sense of dread into a clinical shift - you are far from alone. Most doctors have felt this.

This live event was born from a conversation between two GPs who found each other through shared experience. In their podcast episode together, Alison and Connie spoke openly about how anxiety and shame had shaped their lives in medicine - the perfectionism, the isolation, the weight of expectations from others and from themselves.

The response told them this conversation needed to go further.

This is that next step.

How This Began

The conversation that started it all

Alison appeared as a guest on Connie’s podcast, Speak Shame, to talk about how anxiety and shame had shaped her life as a doctor - from her earliest years in medicine to her work today as a coach.

That episode struck a chord. Doctors got in touch to say they had heard themselves in the conversation. That it was the first time they had heard these things said out loud by another doctor. You can listen to their conversation here.

Who This Is For

You might find this conversation useful if…

- You have experienced anxiety - in your clinical work, your career, or your personal life

- You have felt silenced, diminished or held back by a sense of not being enough

- You carry the pressure of perfectionism and find it hard to admit when things feel difficult

- You want to listen to the stories of other doctors who get it

- You are curious about how shame operates in our profession

This conversation is open to all doctors, across all career stages including those who are currently practising, on a break, or who have left the profession entirely.

Dr Alison Smith

GP · Coach · Facilitator and Founder, Earth and Bloom

Alison spent close to 20 years in medicine. Through her own coaching journey, and through hundreds of hours working with other doctors, she came to understand just how much anxiety and shame shape the experience of medicine and how rarely they are spoken about. She founded Earth and Bloom to create space for exactly these conversations.

Alison has also written about her own experience of anxiety and shame in medicine in an article for the Shame and Medicine project at the University of Exeter, entitled, The Hidden Struggle: How Anxiety & Shame Shape Doctors' Lives.

Dr Connie Kerali

Doctor · Storyteller · Survivor

Connie is a GP with over 15 years of experience, a transformational life coach & clinical hypnotherapist, and a survivor of sexual violence. She shares her story of being silenced by shame after being raped, along with the stories of other women who have faced and overcome shame, on her podcast, Speak Shame with Dr Connie Kerali.

Dr Connie is building a community that provides hope, inspiration & empowerment to remarkable women who have been silenced by shame and this work was recognised when she won the inaugural Female Invest Changemaker Award in March 2026.

If You Need Support Right Now

NHS Practitioner Health - Free, confidential mental health and addiction support, self-referral

BMA Counselling & Peer Support - Free and confidential 24/7 counselling and peer support line for all doctors and medical students (you do not need to be a BMA member to access this)

Doctors in Distress - Free, confidential, professionally facilitated online support groups running three times a week for any healthcare worker struggling with their mental health

Doctors' Support Network - A confidential, friendly self-help group for doctors with mental health conditions, with an anonymous online support forum

Samaritans - Call for free on 116 123 - available 24 hours/day