four days because the locals believed that the milk was sour. There will be times when you need to decide which issues are life threatening, and which are long-standing cultural traditions. I decided the Ethiopian mothers had drunk strong coffee daily throughout their pregnancies, so chose not to address the issue. However, in Afghanistan, where maternal death rates were high, we conducted a workshop on the safe benefits of ‘breastfeeding immediately after delivery’ for the mother’s safety as well as the babies. This new information brought about a change in behavioural practices. AC: What advice would you give to healthcare students who are considering joining MSF or other similar aid agencies in the future? F: Go camping and have a weekend without hot food, WI-FI or electricity. Learn French or Arabic and get some overseas experience. There’s a very good organisation called ‘Care4Calais’, who provide support to the refugees in Calais. Undertaking a tropical medicine course is also essential and there are courses available in Liverpool and at the London School of Tropical Medicine. AC: Do you have any plans to work for MSF in the future? F: I’d love to! I’ve had my bag packed for a year! If nothing comes up, I’m thinking of going to work in the Moria Camp in Lesvos with a smaller charity. For more information on MSF, including how they set up a COVID hospital for homeless people - a project that has now finished - check out the link below. http://msf.org.uk/
WORKING DURING THE PANDEMIC: INTERVIEW WITH IZZY CARA Isabel Cara is a year 3 medic who after University closed in March 2020 spent the majority of her lockdown working for the NHS. We caught up with her to discuss working during a pandemic and how coronavirus has impacted her medical school experience. How did you spend your pandemic? During the pandemic, I was fortunate that my local DGH, Northampton General Hospital (NGH), was able to offer a scheme for returning medical students. The program involved us working as ‘clinical assistants’, a novel role that incorporated many of the skills that we had already learned (or were learning) as medical students. These included practical skills; and jobs such as preparing notes for the ward round, ordering scans, venepuncture, cannulas etc. Having worked at NGH as a phlebotomist during my previous two summers, I had developed a good relationship with my manager there. She e-mailed me outlining the emerging clinical assistant role that was being planned, and that’s how I got the job! How did you manage to study simultaneously whilst working? The clinical assistant scheme was created as a bank role in order that medical students would be able to fit their studies around the job. I was therefore able to book my shifts to avoid my online lectures. In this way I felt that I was able to continue my theory learning as well as gaining valuable clinical experience. It was also nice to get a bit of normality from working in the hospital. Obviously, hospitals had to carry on as best they could during the first wave of the pandemic, so it was really refreshing to be able get out of the house and talk to people who weren’t in my ‘bubble’. Did you ever get coronavirus? Yes, within the first week of lockdown, my parents and I managed to catch coronavirus. My brother (also a medical student!) returned a week after me and managed to pick it up too. Fortunately, all of
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