Along with CCSF committee member, Julia Montgomery, I recently met up with Katharine Elliott, a past scholarship winner, for a quick lunch and chat. As a new member of the CCSF committee myself, and about to embark on reading through the many dozens of applications for funds this year, I wanted to find out more about the students we have helped in the past. Julia promised me that meeting Katharine would be an inspiration – and I can only agree with her!
We met at the Royal Free Hospital in Belsize Park, where Katharine is currently working. Visiting any NHS hospital in London is a stark reminder that having good health is a blessing – but listening to Katharine’s life story, was an even greater reminder that helping young students to make their way in their life is important for us all.
Katharine came to the UK to study medicine in a rather circuitous way. She completed a B.Sc. (with Distinction) at McGill University in Montreal, majoring in Microbiology and Immunology. With a budding interest in international development, she spent several years with the VSO in Zambia and in Malawi (learning to speak both African languages). On returning to Canada, she worked in immunology research for a few months then took an internship in Bolivia (adding Spanish to her languages), in sexual and reproductive health with Oxfam-Quebec (did I say she speaks French as well?).
What I first wanted to know was what was so attractive about studying in the UK? Having already worked overseas, Katharine had picked up more hands-on skills than many of her contemporaries. She had also picked up a dream: to become a doctor. To do this in Canada, she would have to start all over again in pre-med studies – which would add a further two years of study. In the UK graduates of Biological Sciences can take an intensive four-year program that combines medical theory with self-directed study and clinical application. Needless to say, she completed her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees (MBChB) at the University of Warwick with Honours – winning a prize for pharmacology and placing in the top 5% of her class.
Having three siblings (two younger and one older), Katharine knew she would be on her own financially – but was prepared to work part-time and fund herself. Even if she had stayed in Canada, where both her parents work as teachers, extra funding for mature students is hard to come by. With no work experience in the commercial sector, she didn’t have savings to help her out.
Katharine’s mature approach to studying medicine, her incredibly high grades, high recommendations from her instructors, and experience of working in developing countries, convinced the CCSF to award Katharine scholarships in three successive years: it is a very rare achievement. But Kathryn is an amazing young woman.
Picture: Left, Julia Montgomery with Katharine Elliott. March 2009
Studies completed, she’s currently year 1 into her 2-year Foundation Programme, and is enjoying being paid, for a change! For the moment, though, she has little free time – her current and past jobs at the Royal Free are Vascular Surgery, Intensive Care/Anaesthetics and Acute Medicine/Hepatology. She told us about being part of the ‘crash team’ – rushing the resuscitation equipment to wherever it was needed within the hospital. Even with a 4 days on/4 days off schedule, doing special shifts in intensive care, and working as a locum, she occasionally picks up surgical work outside of London and still has time to do research and write papers. One of the papers she’s helped to research was published in ‘Kidney International’ in November 2008. And in what spare time she has, she likes to go running and loves walking around London.
Her 2nd year on the Foundation Course will be at Barnet and Chase Farms, an NHS Trust hospital in North London, where she'll do Obstectrics, Urology and A&E and where she might finally decide on which area to specialise in: possibly obstetrics because she loves the relationships that can develop with women and because she still has such a strong commitment to improve the care women receive in developing countries. But Julia and I will be surprised if she settles on a specialisation immediately. Katharine has an enthusiasm for so many areas of medicine that she might just as likely return to Canada to be a GP – or head back to Africa, possibly with an organisation like Médecins Sans Frontières.
Wherever she goes, Katharine says Canada will always be ‘home’: she still feels ‘at home’ when she returns to Montreal She is delighted that Canadians living in the UK have so generously helped her with getting to where she is today. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Kathryn – and am now all fired up to read through the stack of applications the CCSF received in March. Perhaps I’ll find the next Katharine Elliott among them!
Submitted by Barbara Richards. A shorter version of this article appears in our April 2009 bulletin
