Hi I’m Alex, I’m a fifth year medical student.
An exciting email landed in my inbox a couple of weeks ago which went along the lines of “would you be interested in helping with a Covid-19 rapid report as part of a scientific advisory group for the UK/Scottish Government?” And my reply was “Of course!”
So how did I get here?
A rather standard, run-of-the-mill 5th year medic, finding herself involved with tackling the corona virus? Well my involvement in global and public health started with an influenza summer project in first year followed by a three-month internship at the World Health Organisation, Geneva, in my second year. But what lead to that email is really a result of what I did during my intercalation.
A venture into epidemiology
Intercalation, that wild, no-man’s land of a year in the middle of medical school where you feel you are neither a fully-fledged medic, nor a final year biomedical student. I chose Epidemiology, a course which threw me into the mix with Masters in Public Health (MPH) students and covered topics from statistics, to health promotion, to global health.
The dissertation project in epidemiology spans two semesters in the form of a literature review and data analysis. I chose to research global paediatric acute lower respiratory tract infections (ALRTI) for my literature review and Scottish bronchiolitis admissions for the data analysis.
Over these months I worked closely with post-doctorates and professors from the Usher Institute, becoming involved in wider respiratory groups including the REspiratory Syncytial virus Consortium EUrope (RESCEU) project and Respiratory Viral Epidemiology Group (RVEG).
Journal submission and what happened next
After successfully graduating in epidemiology, I continued to work on data analysis in my 4th and 5th year, staying in contact with my supervisors throughout this time. Recently, I submitted my bronchiolitis project to an international medical journal for publication and made a small name for myself amongst the Edinburgh respiratory epidemiologist community.
Although it is just a small name, it was big enough to bring my work to the attention of the Covid-19 rapid response team based at the Usher Institute. So, as corona virus has emerged and researchers are needed for studying the virus, the serendipitous merger of my interests in global and public health, epidemiology, and previous experience researching respiratory viruses, means that I can help out.
In short, through sitting in front of computer screens for hours on end tackling various data and word processing programmes, turning up to interest groups, giving presentations and generally just being up for trying new things, I’ve managed to build on my knowledge and skills enough that I am now being actively sought out to be part of reviews and reports. To say I’ve not had imposter syndrome at some point in the journey would be a lie, but then again, I think the feeling did go away when I was recruited for a (non-Covid-19) review due to my “expertise on RSV [respiratory syncytial virus] and epidemiology”.
View the World Health Organization (WHO) guidance on typhoid surveillance Alex contributed to during her internship:
