Dr. Philippa Kaye – Inspirational Doctor & Journalist

Meet Dr. Philippa Kaye, an inspirational doctor, mother, author, journalist, TV, podcast, and social media star. We are immensely proud to tell her story in our “Inspirational You, Awesome Sisters United” feature.

• GP with an interest in Women’s Health, Children’s Health, and Sexual Health
• Author
• TV Doctor
• Social Media Influencer
• Journalist
• Mother
• Ambassador for Wellbeing of Women (UK’s Women’s Health Charity)
• Ambassador for Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust
• Ambassador for the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy

Philippa attended an all-girls school in London before studying Medicine at Downing College, Cambridge. She returned to London to complete her clinical training at Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’s Medical Schools.

Philippa has worked in Paediatrics, Gynaecology, Care of the Elderly, Acute Medicine, Psychiatry and is now a GP with an interest in Women and Children’s Health and Sexual Health.

Philippa is a kind, intelligent, beautiful, and relatable individual. Her regular Instagram posts and reels deliver easy to understand, bite size chunks of health education to her 35.5K followers. One of Philippa’s superpowers is her ability to explain medical problems and procedures in simple language that non-medics can understand.

Make-up, no make-up, great hair, bedraggled hair, sad, joyful, anxious optimistic, Philippa always shows up. It is impossible not to admire her openness, honesty and vulnerability, the qualities that make her so likeable and personable. Her healthcare advice is delivered with empathy and kindness and her dedication is incredible.

Over a recent period of just a few months Philippa has posted a wealth of accessible information on cervical smears, periods, contraception, vaginal discharge, fertility, pregnancy, pelvic floor muscle exercises, miscarriage, menopause, HRT, migraines, osteoporosis, vitamin D, sunscreen, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, bowel cancer, prostate cancer, bra fitting, sports bras, vaccinations, hay fever, antidepressants and how to place someone in the recovery position.

She unashamedly calls out misinformation on products that claim to give unproven health benefits or celebrity endorsed nonsense – one example being rectal ozone (thanks, Gwyneth Paltrow)!

Philippa is also an advocate of good nutrition and exercise. At home, she loves cooking and sharing meals with her family. On Instagram, she will often share a “snackrifice” with her followers. For anyone, like me, who had not heard of this term, the dictionary definition is as follows:

Snackrifice: a kind gesture whereby an individual saves the last delicious treat or food parcel for his/her significant other or friend.

Philippa tells us that we should exercise not for image but for the health benefits for our body and mind.

“Movement is not punishment for your body, it is self-care.”

Philippa wanted to be a doctor ever since she can remember. Medicine is her vocation, and she will always be a doctor first, and a media personality second. However, her prominent position and success in mainstream media enables her to reach and help millions more people than would be possible as an individual GP in an average medical practice.

Philippa regularly presents on This Morning, Talk TV and other channels. She has recorded multiple high-profile podcasts. In addition, Philippa contributes frequently to the written press and is the medical expert for several magazines including, That’s Life, and My Weekly Special. She is also the sexual health GP for Ann Summers.

As an ambassador for Wellbeing of Women and Jo’s Cervical Cancer trust, Philippa is a great advocate of women’s healthcare. She is also passionate about gender equality.

A hugely successful career woman and mother of 3 young children, Philippa has first-hand experience of society’s expectation that “women should work like they don’t have children and raise children as if they don’t work.”

The elite educational institutions that Philippa attended taught her that girls can achieve anything and everything. However, whilst gender should not restrict aspiration, Philippa feels that this message does not realistically portray the challenges still faced by women who wish to be top of their profession, earn equal pay to their male counterparts, whilst caring diligently for their children and elderly parents.

“The expectations upon women are immense and unachievable.”

Great progress has been made over the last century but until absolute gender equality is attained, women still can’t “have it all.” Philippa wishes that society would be more honest about this.

“Impossible goals can lead to damaging traits of perfectionism and feelings of inadequacy. We must tell women that pursuit of perfectionism is not healthy because it is unattainable… Good enough is good enough”.

Philippa is a devoted mother to 3 children aged 7, 11 and 15 years.

“Being a mother is the most important job that I do, as well as often being the most challenging!”

In addition to her numerous medical and media achievements Philippa has authored numerous books on fertility, pregnancy, child health, child development and diabetes.

Her latest publications include Breasts: An Owner’s Guide (published DK), The M Word: Everything you need to know about the menopause and Doctors Get Cancer Too, a memoir of her personal experience of bowel cancer.

Diagnosis

Philippa was diagnosed with bowel cancer in May 2019 at the age of 39. She had been experiencing pain in her pelvis which was attributed to scar tissue formed after 3 caesarean sections. However, as the pain persisted Philippa sought referral to a gynaecologist.

Despite not having any of the classic symptoms of bowel cancer (blood in the stool, change in bowel habit, abdominal pain, mass in the abdomen or weight loss), he referred her to a bowel surgeon.

One of the disadvantages of being a doctor is that one is trained to look for the worst possibilities. As Philippa lay on the examination couch watching the colonoscope advance through her large intestine, her surgeons eyes turned to meet hers.

Both had seen the cancer at the same time. Both were simultaneously struck with the awful realisation that her life was never going to be the same.

Within a week Philippa was in an intensive care unit recovering from major surgery to remove the tumour from her bowel.

After chemotherapy, over a year later, in September 2020 Philippa was admitted for a further major procedure. As the timing fell amid the Covid-19 Pandemic no friends or relatives were able to accompany her to hospital, nor were they allowed to visit her during her 15-days stay.

Philippa’s experience taught her that each person travels their cancer journey alone. However, the imposed isolation measures enforced a further level of cruelty. Hospital staff were the only persons able to provide support to inpatients.

The three Philippa remembers are:

• The surgeon who made her get up off the trolley and walk into theatre, saying “Philippa, you walk in to walk out,”
• The ODP (operating department practitioner) who held her hand in the anaesthetic room and was still holding it when she woke up, and
• The junior doctor who sat on her bed in ICU in at 3am and acknowledged that she was having the most dreadful time.

Therapy

‘I didn’t want to go because I didn’t want to be a cancer patient and I didn’t want to talk about cancer all the time.’

Only after her body was a little better was Philippa able to start to heal from the mental trauma her cancer diagnosis had inflicted.

Therapy is a space where she could truly express her feelings without judgement or consequence, a place to allow the release of the flood of emotions including rage, sadness, guilt and pain, a safe place for her mind to heal.

Another way Philippa found to cope with her cancer diagnosis was to write a diary. This moving account of her journey and emotional outpouring of her feelings has since been published as the book: Doctors Get Cancer too.

Survivorship

‘The journey isn’t over when they say there is no cancer…’

As more people survive cancer, Philippa feels it is important for society to talk about the issues of survivorship. Change, both psychological and physical is inevitable.

Psychological

Survivors often struggle with a combination of gratitude and grief. Gratitude of being cancer-free mixed with grief for the tangible and intangible things they have lost.

Scanxiety – is ubiquitous among all cancer patients.

Philippa describes the way every bowel preparation, colonoscopy and follow-up scan takes her back to her diagnosis. Each person must bear the loneliness of the scanner and the dreadful fear of recurrence.

Family members often struggle to say the right things to relatives affected by cancer and Philippa urges them to provide “support not solutions.” You don’t always have to try to fix everything; often people just need someone to listen so that they can be heard.

‘Being strong is not being unafraid. It is being afraid and going to the scan anyway… Courage is keeping going despite feeling tired, fed up and sad.’

Physical

Physical consequences of treatment may include premature menopause due to chemotherapy, vaginal dryness, lack of libido, digestive problems, stoma bags lymphoedema, and many other issues. By talking about these issues, we can lift taboos and start to practically address them.

Philippa continues to address these largely unspoken issues and in doing so she provides insight, practical solutions, and hope to her followers. Thank you for letting us share your incredible story, Philippa. You are truly inspirational.