Career Story: ICM and Anaesthesia with Obstetric special interest
I am a consultant in Intensive Care Medicine and anaesthesia with special interest in Obstetric critical care. I have been very lucky as a young consultant to not only pursue my choice of career in medicine but also my chosen specialty. For this, I am deeply indebted to my trainers who took the time to support and lead me. I joined medicine through a competitive process in India when I was 16 years old and never looked back. Critical care was what I always wanted to do – it amalgamates a multitude of skills, cutting across various medical specialties and challenges oneself to perform and serve.
I came to the United Kingdom to train in Intensive care in early 2002 – at a point when such training was not formally available in India and in early developmental stages in England. I joined as a clinical observer in ICM in London and then went to Aberdeen as a SHO in ICM and then anaesthetics. My training journey was complicated (due to both personal and professional reasons). I trained in London and the North east of England, completing my training in 2012 with dedicated time in intensive care (advanced training) and obstetric anaesthesia (higher module).
Working in a challenging specialty such as intensive care helps one develop personal resilience, and the long duration of training, such as mine, mirrors the training pathways of many others. Long working hours, dysfunctional work-life balance, exams, rotas and working with staff shortages are all synonymous with the training.
However, for all aspiring intensivist out there, all this toil is repaid in kind from all the happiness and expressions of gratitude from the sick patients and their family we serve. It reminds us ultimately why we are in this profession.
I am now a consultant in intensive care at a big district general hospital in the North of England. I balance my day to day life as an intensivist with a lovely family with two children. My work life is busy, I have an interest in dealing with sick parturient, contribute as an ICM assessor for MBBRACE, have management interests (I have been the Lead for a 16 bedded unit for last three years).
Intensive care skills give you the choice to train others, gain management skills and be at the fore of change in such a critical time for the NHS – being the only common denominator specialty amongst all intra-hospital care of patients.
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