'I learned how to stay calm as a junior doctor – it helped me win The Apprentice'

Dr Leah Totton is a medical doctor and cosmetic specialist. From working full time as an A&E doctor in the NHS, to winning BBC’s The Apprentice aged 25, she is now the founder of a chain of award-winning clinics – Dr Leah Skin Clinics, and a business partner of Lord Alan Sugar.

When you become more senior, leading by example is critical and Ralph Austin treated me with professional respect and courtesy, even as the most junior of the medical staff of the doctors he was working with.

I qualified as a doctor in 2011 aged 23 and my first job was in colorectal surgery at Colchester General Hospital where Ralph was my supervising surgeon.

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Looking back, it was a huge amount of responsibility. To have such an inspirational and supportive consultant really set me on my career path and helped my confidence as a junior doctor.

Ralph is skilful and dedicated to his professional craft, with a real eye for detail. His bedside manner was excellent in dealing with some very ill patients and no task was beneath him. He also had real empathy and care for me as a junior in my first clinical job.

The workload for junior doctors is huge – and even more challenging now – after six years at university and training to become a doctor to then go onto the wards was extremely daunting.

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I would arrive an hour before our ward rounds started and then stay on for another hour or so at the end of the day and Ralph, who was at the time the most senior surgeon in the hospital, did the same. But we were a team and it didn’t bother me at all to work an extra two or three hours a day to get the best results for his patients.

I didn’t appreciate how influential a first boss could be until I became a boss for someone else who was in the infancy of their career. It could be crushing if you didn’t have someone supportive and encouraging.

Ralph had a really interesting leadership style; he was extremely calm and never appeared to be overwhelmed, which is a superpower in both life and in high-pressure NHS environments.

Staying calm certainly stood me in really good stead on The Apprentice and in my current business career. Lord Alan Sugar and I have been business partners for a decade now since I won The Apprentice and he’s mentored me throughout that time.

We’ve had astounding success in the business we’ve built. We opened our Moorgate clinic in 2014 and it was named Best Clinic in London in 2017 after just three years. Then in 2018 we won the My Face My Body Award. We’ve got three clinics now, and we’ve also branched out into a skincare line.

It’s been interesting to contrast the two leadership styles with Ralph and Lord Sugar. What they both have in common is their ability to instil confidence and self belief. But Ralph is more verbally expressive whereas Alan is more action based.

There isn’t the same clinical pressure at the skin clinic that there was in the NHS, but I am under pressure to make this business work, in the public eye, in the middle of London, and I have the responsibility of looking after staff.

While Lord Sugar is great at the commercial side, Ralph taught me how to ensure high standards on the clinical and patient side. I have limited the scale of the business as I want to make sure it is the highest quality it can be – that’s the only way to create longevity in this industry.

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If you gain too much international scale too quickly, it’s difficult to maintain quality. It’s taken me seven years to formulate the skincare range and develop a formula I felt was good enough.

Commercially was that the best option? Alan would say ‘no’ but it’s about standards and quality.

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