MAKE no mistake, Dr Philippa Whitford embarked on a daunting task to kick off 2015.

After a whirlwind but ultimately unsuccessful campaign for independence, the Belfast-born consultant breast surgeon was deemed by Central Ayrshire’s SNP contingent to be the woman to end the near 25-year reign of Labour MP Brian Donohoe.

Donohoe’s seat was undoubtedly one of the safest in Scotland and held a 12,000 majority ahead of May’s General Election. But he, like many of his party peers, was dethroned in a political earthquake never before seen in Scottish politics. That hefty majority was reversed into a 13,000 swing for Dr Whitford.

In the days and weeks that followed, the SNP members were almost pictured daily as a united front inside and out of Westminster, buoyed by their truly remarkable victory.

But Dr Whitford admitted she didn’t exactly share that enthusiasm.

“My big fear was what if this is a waste of time? What if you can’t have any impact at all?”, she revealed when we met in her Eglinton Street office.

And like some of her new parliamentary colleagues, Dr Whitford has not spent a lifetime pounding the streets in the name of party politics.

As well as her career as a surgeon at Crosshouse Hospital, the 56-year-old’s passion for charitable causes has taken her across the world from Tanzania to Gaza.

“I’ve always been political with a small ‘p’, I’ve always been interested in what’s going on but never terribly party political,” Dr Whitford said.

“I’ve always voted SNP since we’ve had Holyrood and I’ve always believed you shouldn’t be a member of a party unless you’re actually making a commitment to be involved and that’s what we had for decades with Labour.

“I decided when I was 11 I wanted to be a surgeon, it’s always been about what can I do that would help people? I never did private practice, I could have made a lot of money but I don’t believe in it.”

Not many would-be MPs begin their political careers as a YouTube sensation.

However, Dr Whitford’s speech about the negative impact a No vote would have on the NHS in Scotland won her overnight acclaim and now has over 76,000 views.

But she admits that despite the euphoria experienced during the campaign, she still needed some persuasion to stand for office.

She added: “It was a huge change in my life, it was my first big hall speech. Somebody asked if they could film it on an iPad and shove it on YouTube, I thought it would be just something I could show my mum.

Irvine Times: Reporter Ciaran Shanks sat down with Philippa Whitford at her Eglinton Street officeReporter Ciaran Shanks sat down with Philippa Whitford at her Eglinton Street office

“My husband Hans and I did well over 5,000 miles last year on top of my day job. I had no intentions of doing anything political and after the referendum I had a job I really liked so I had no thought of going away from that.”

The MP added: “Having spent all my life in what used to be a very male dominated profession to go to another male dominated profession with slightly posher accents there was nothing attractive about it.

“Alex Salmond asked me to go away and re-think about it and that was at the end of the conference, Hans had moved 180 degrees and said with all the years of working at the hospital I run the house anyway!”

On paper the Central Ayrshire seat was tough to split, would voters choose to stick with the MP they’ve known for over two decades or elect a new candidate to be the area’s first female MP. The rest is history and while she was stunned at the size of the majority, Dr Whitford says she believed the election was won on the streets.

She said: “At first I was thinking ‘how are we going to do this’, we had a relatively short period of time to do it but what I saw very quickly was that Brian’s people on the ground was hardly anybody whereas we had activists on the ground and people who had never campaigned before asking if they could teach them how to canvass.

“You don’t want to count your chickens but I was thinking we might win by a couple of thousand if we’ve done well.

“Nicola (Sturgeon) was such a huge contribution particularly in the UK leaders TV debates. You’d be chatting to someone saying they’d never voted SNP before but saying ‘Our Nicola did great last week’. I was lucky I had a big personal vote as well, I’ve been here a long time.”

But it hasn’t all been plain sailing for Dr Whitford and says she thought about QUITTING her post just weeks after being elected.

When asked if she is enjoying life at Westminster, she said: “I am now, I’ve been quite open in the early weeks of having ice cold feet to the point of thinking ‘what would happen if I called a by-election? I’ve made a big mistake’ When we were sitting there on the day of The Queen’s speech where everybody’s in, the chamber is jam-packed and there’s just this wall of Tories opposite you patting each other on the back and braying and you think ‘why am I here? What on earth can we do?’

"But I’ve found my feet, I’ve found my voice in the chamber. By the end of term when it got to summer, which was really really busy, a lot of it was meeting people and that’s nice I’m a people person which is why I did the job I did.”