I am involved in two projects: researching the role of touch in newborn development, and researching perceptions of racism in medicine, with a view to helping develop new guidelines.
Education wise, I continue to edit 15 textbooks, including the Oxford Textbook of Global Health of Women, Newborns, Children, and Adolescents. I enjoy teaching, both virtually and in person. I regularly appear in the media speaking about mental health, paediatrics, COVID-19, and how we best deliver healthcare.
At home, I enjoy playing piano and chess.
Timeline
Not only had we written books, we’d also set up a publishing company, competing with giants like Elsevier and Oxford University Press. The Independent Publishers Guild recognised our hard work at their annual conference.
Delivered a TEDx talk in New Zealand to around 1000 people on the important subject of the mental health of healthcare workers.
After years of hardwork, it was a true honour to be recognised for the work we’d done in writing textbooks. My mum and brother joined us, as me and my fellow authors of our chest x-ray book picked up this award.
Things had gotten really bad in medicine, and we felt that as doctors, we could no longer provide safe care for patients. I took the difficult decision to go on strike, and spoke out to the media about what was going on.
It was a welcome change to go back into education, and studying at UCL meant I made friends with students from all over the world, and I got taught by leaders across a diverse range of fields. I ended up working on stillbirth research, publishing in the Lancet and the BMJ, and presenting data on the causes of stillbirth across the world.
I have always passionately believed that classifying people as ‘teachers’ and ‘students’ is a false dichotomy. We all have something to teach and something to learn. I wanted to empower those more junior to become educators, and so founded a company that did exactly this, releasing “The Unofficial Guide to Passing OSCEs” which became the best selling medical book on amazon for six months.
I was over the moon to find out that I’d got a place studying paediatrics in London. I had a run through training programme, that would take me through to consultant level, and had the opportunity to be closer to family again.
I was so happy to spend the day with my family when I finally celebrated completing medical school. Finals are still the single most stressful exam I’ve done in my life, but I got through it, and was proud of the fact that all that hard-work over six years paid off.
I took a year out of medicine to study under Professor Nick Curzen and did research into antiplatelet therapy, looking at how care could be personalised to the individual patient. I travelled across the UK, Europe, and Canada presenting our findings, and was generously supported by a research grant from Heart Research UK. Our work published in Cardiovascular Therapeutics and Platelets.
I was delighted to find out that I’d got into medical school. I was following the footsteps of my father. I will forever be grateful for his support. Thanks to his hard work and support, my path into medicine was so much easier than his was made much easier than his.