Ask five people working in primary care what the future of their profession looks like, and you may receive five very different answers.

Financial uncertainty, workforce shortages, changing technology and shifting career models are affecting people and organisations in different ways. Pressure on services reaches teams. Pressure on teams shapes behaviour. Eventually, the effects are felt by the patient.

For Dr Afiniki Akanet, one warning sign is particularly revealing: empathy begins to suffer.

“When things become too stressful, the first thing that goes out of the window usually for us in healthcare is the empathy,” she says. Maintaining compassion and a genuine connection with patients becomes considerably harder when teams are rushing to keep pace with demand.

Her perspective is grounded in her work as a GP with a specialist interest in mental health and her own experience of balancing competing responsibilities. Alongside clinical practice, Dr Akanet teaches postgraduate prescribing at Coventry University, writes about money and mental wellbeing, and has previously worked as a GP partner.

“I like to practise what I preach,” she says. “The variety helps me to stay well.”

Her interest in professional wellbeing grew from recognising how easily the qualities that draw people into healthcare can begin to work against them. Ambition, commitment and a desire to help others can sustain a career, but they can also make it difficult to acknowledge when its demands have become unsustainable.

“Sometimes, the more we take on, and the more we keep getting on with it, hinders change,” she says. Recognising that a situation cannot continue indefinitely may require people and organisations to speak openly and reconsider established ways of working.

For Dr Akanet, reflection is central to professional longevity. Definitions of success must be allowed to evolve alongside people’s circumstances. A milestone that felt important ten years ago may no longer suit their responsibilities, health, ambitions or stage of life.

Her own measure of a successful clinic has changed. She once placed considerable importance on completing every consultation and finishing precisely on time. Now, particularly when a patient’s original concern develops into a discussion about their mental health, she is more willing to give that conversation the space it needs.

This thinking also shapes her view of mental wellbeing, career planning and financial confidence. People’s income and commitments influence the choices they feel able to make about their roles, hours and futures; their experiences at work affect their wellbeing beyond it.

Dr Akanet has explored this connection in her writing, including Money and Mental Wellbeing. Greater financial confidence cannot remove system pressures, but it can widen the choices people feel able to make about their careers and long-term plans.

Those choices also carry consequences for organisations. When experienced professionals reduce their hours or leave healthcare, the pressure does not disappear; it moves into remaining teams, service capacity and the patient experience. For leaders, professional longevity is therefore closely tied to retention and sustainable care.

“Our identity is not all in our careers,” Dr Akanet says. “It’s not all in our jobs.”

That distinction sits at the centre of her session at Best Practice Birmingham 2026. Through practical reflection, discussion and supporting resources, Dr Akanet will encourage delegates to consider what success, commitment and longevity mean within their own circumstances, and how the decisions they make can support their work, wellbeing and lives beyond it.

For an open discussion about protecting empathy, navigating uncertainty and making career decisions that support professional longevity, join Dr Afiniki Akanet in the Workshop: Live Theatre on Wednesday 7 October at Best Practice Birmingham 2026

Click here to register now.