23 minute read
RCSI Alumni - Going Places!
from RCSI Alumni Magazine 2021
by RCSI
With alumni in 94 countries, the RCSI diaspora is truly global. Eight alumni tell us about where they live and work
PERTH, AUSTRALIA ALISON MOLAMPHY
Physiotherapy, Class of 2015
After graduating, I worked in University Hospital Limerick for two years before coming to Perth in 2018. I had no job organised before I arrived, and it took a while to organise the paperwork side of things. I was here for two or three months before everything was approved for me to start working as a physiotherapist.
I work in private practice. I had originally thought I might work in a hospital as that was my experience in Ireland, but you have to be a permanent resident or citizen to work as a physiotherapist in a hospital in Western Australia; it’s di erent for doctors. The practice I work in is based in the Wembley suburb of Perth; we consider ourselves generalists. We have a mix of private and insurance patients, and we run specialist osteoporosis classes. We have a gym and a clinical pilates studio, and I am trained to deliver clinical pilates instruction. In private practice we have autonomy to refer for imaging, which is something I did not have at home when I worked in private practice, and many health insurance schemes cover preventative physiotherapy.
Perth is very beautiful, and can be very hot – it’s 37°C today! It’s very easy to live an active lifestyle, because of the dry, sunny weather. Because of the heat, people tend to be early risers, and things kick off early in the morning and finish early at night. If you are after late nightlife, there are better places. It’s not uncommon for exercise classes to happen at five in the morning, and I’m often in work before 7am. Usually I work three early days, finishing at lunchtime, and some late days, nishing at 8–8.30pm. I often work on Saturdays.
Perth, Australia
Accommodation can be quite difficult to come by, and apartment living is not as prevalent outside of the city centre as on the east coast, so house shares are more common. Cost-wise, rents are comparable to Ireland, and cheaper than the eastern states, but eating and drinking is a bit more expensive. ere are lots of Irish doctors here, but not as many physios – there are more in Sydney and Melbourne. Public transport connections in Perth aren’t as extensive in suburban areas as they are in the centre, as there has been a lot of development over the past decade and the train line has not been extended to reach sprawling suburbs. A car is the easiest way to get around if you are not living directly on the train line. The beaches are amazing and the shopping and restaurants are great. One of the amenities I love is the public barbecues for groups of families and friends. We try and go on trips as often as possible – there are so many places to visit even just within Western Australia.
When we came initially, we thought we would be here for a year or two and then return home, but we extended that because we enjoy the lifestyle so much and it’s one of the very few places in the world where you can live a relatively normal life during the pandemic. Now we have permanent residency so we have the option to stay, but we haven’t made a decision yet.
VANCOUVER, CANADA BETH WOLFE
Physiotherapy, Class of 2017
I’m from Cork originally and two weeks after graduation I moved to Vancouver for the summer to teach sailing at Jericho Beach. Initially I thought it was only going to be for a couple of months but very quickly I decided to stay and I’m still here four years later. I don’t have any immediate plans to go back to Ireland – the more I get settled here, the harder it is to leave. I really love it here but do see myself going back to Ireland at some point in the future.
As a relatively junior physiotherapist it is easier to get work in a private practice here than it would be back in Ireland. In Ireland they won’t hire anyone to a clinic without a number of years’ experience, but here in Canada they train you up within the practice.
I first got interested in physiotherapy as a career through a family friend who is a physiotherapist. He worked both with out-patients at a hospital in Cork and with sports teams so I got an insight into both types of work. And I experienced physio as a patient when I had sports injuries and I loved that. In university we spent more time on rotation in hospitals and I didn’t enjoy it as much – I didn’t feel as if I was making any di erence to patients because you have such a short time to see people. In hospital the focus is on getting people mobile enough to get them home, which is what you need to do in that situation, but in private practice sometimes I could get to work with people for a year or more and I feel more fulfilled in terms of the type of work I am doing. That’s not to say I wouldn’t work in a hospital again, just that for now I prefer private practice. Vancouver is not a very big city, it’s a similar size to Dublin. It is built on an outcrop of land surrounded by water. There’s a huge seawall with a cycling and running track that wraps around the city which is absolutely beautiful. Most of the Irish in Vancouver live in an area called Kitsilano. I lived there for a while but I moved downtown to an area called Yaletown. You can see the mountains and the water from my apartment.
Vancouver, Canada
It takes me 25 minutes to get to work on public transport, the buses are great. Vancouver is quite an expensive city, on a par with Dublin and Cork, but I am probably earning a bit more here than I would back home. The cost of housing here is through the roof and I have to say that is one consideration in terms of whether I will stay, because to afford a nice house I think you would have to move quite a way out of the city.
At the moment I feel as if I work all the time. It’s shift work and I usually work five days, including Saturday. In private practice you do have to work either early mornings or late into the evenings, and you don’t get paid for time off or holidays. Work/life balance can be tricky but I don’t mind it at the moment. My favourite time of year here is summer and the weather is so nice. I love sailing and going to the beach. Hiking and anything to do with the mountains is massive here, I had never really skied or snowboarded growing up, but here I’ve been going snowshoeing. ere are lots of great spots to explore within a couple of hours of the city. The worst thing about being in Vancouver is missing family: I was homesick when the borders closed, it felt so far away. I’m coming to terms with it now.
SINGAPORE DR AKSHAY PADKI
Medicine, Class of 2015
Singapore
I’m originally from India but I grew up mainly in China as my parents were based there for work and I did most of my schooling there, with my last three years of high school in Canada. In my nal year at RCSI, I applied for a job in Singapore as a back–up option, in case I didn’t get the job I wanted in Ireland a er graduation. I was offered a medical job outside Dublin but I wanted a surgical job so I took up the position in Singapore instead, moving here in August 2015, straight after graduation. I had never lived here but had visited several times, I knew what it was like.
I did my houseman year – the equivalent of intern year in Ireland – in Singapore. at consisted of three di erent postings: one medical, one surgical and one elective. You are graded on those postings and then you can apply for SHO postings in areas you are interested in, after which you can apply for a specialist scheme, which is a direct pathway to consultancy. I am applying for the Orthopaedic Surgery Scheme which is quite competitive, but I hope to be accepted this year. There are only ten to 15 spots a year.
I have worked at several di erent public hospitals including Changi Hospital in Eastern Singapore and the National University Hospital. I am now at Singapore General, the biggest hospital in the country. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I helped at the National Centre of Infectious Disease as well.
Singapore is a small country and its healthcare system is very well-funded, efficient and quite advanced. It was a bit of a culture shock at first, I was surprised how quickly things were done. I remember when I was in Ireland I would have had to take all the bloods myself and wheel the ECG cart around, but here it is more automated and nurse-led. at was both refreshing and interesting to see. Work/life balance here is defnitely less than in Ireland. Saturdays are still technically a half day, and sometimes I have clinics/OTs. On calls can be tiring as well and the following day you’re expected to continue your normal duties until around noon when you can go “post call”.
I’ve always been comfortable in big cities, and I enjoy living here but there is no beach near the city and although we have some parks there is not much access to large parks/nature trails. One of the biggest draws is the proximity to SE Asia, which is cheap and easy to get to. Prior to the pandemic, we would have gone on holiday somewhere every two months or so, to Bali, ailand, Cambodia or Vietnam.
Singapore is one of the most expensive cities in the world – as a nonSingaporean doctor you get a housing allowance when you arrive, which helps. If you are looking to buy, the prices are astronomical so you are likely to be renting here longer than you might in other cities. Cars are expensive too, but food and day-to-day expenses are reasonable. Public transport is very efficient,
I usually take a taxi to work in the morning, which takes about 15 minutes, and get the MRT home, which takes about 40 minutes.
I did not originally intend to stay in Singapore, but I met my wife who is Singaporean and we are settled here now for the foreseeable future. ere were about 20 other Irish medical graduates who arrived here the same year I did and we meet up fairly frequently. We go out for drinks and dinner. ere is great nightlife here, it is a very vibrant city with lots of young working professionals. But now it’s less nightclubs and more going to cafés and walking the dog.
SAN FRANCISCO, USA DR JEYSEN YOGARATNAM
Medicine, Class of 1999
After graduating from RCSI, I moved to the UK to pursue training in Cardiothoracic Surgery and completed a PhD. In 2008, while I was coming to the end of my training at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, I began to realise that opportunities to progress my career in cardiac surgery were diminishing. Many of my more senior colleagues who had completed their cardiothoracic surgical training found it very challenging to secure consultant positions in the UK.
I was keen to explore opportunities outside academia in the area of biotech–based clinical research and joined a world class biotech organisation, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), in the UK to explore and pursue a new career as a clinical drug developer. at was 13 years ago and I have not looked back since! Within two years, I was promoted and BMS relocated me and my wife to Connecticut and later I secured a place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Business, to pursue an MBA. While in Boston I worked with Vertex and following the completion of my MBA in 2015, my family, now including two children and a husky, decided to move to sunny California.
I transitioned to a more senior role as a drug developer at Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a Johnson & Johnson Company) in the Bay Area of San Francisco, USA. While working in the Bay Area, I have held increasingly senior roles as a drug developer at a number of di erent biotechs, leading the early clinical development activities of a number of di erent novel therapeutics in the areas of chronic hepatitis B, C and D and influenza. In my current role at Aligos Therapeutics, I was incredibly fortunate to be able to join the company while it was just a small private start-up biotech. In my role, I lead and advance the clinical development of many novel therapeutics through early clinical development that ultimately enabled the company to transition into a successful publicly traded biotech.
San Francisco, USA
California is beautiful and the amazing weather is a huge attraction for my family. We live in a suburb of San Francisco, in the East Bay, called Danville. In this part of the Bay, it is possible for us to drive up to the slopes of Lake Tahoe for early morning skiing and still be able to drive back to the Bay Area beaches to catch the late a ernoon sun and waves. It also offers some of the best US public schooling systems and recreational activities for our growing boys. The San Francisco Bay Area is consistently ranked in the top two of the best biotech hubs in the world. As such it o ers ample professional opportunities for me to continue to grow as a drug developer. Furthermore, it has world class hospitals and healthcare systems that o er fantastic opportunities for my wife to grow her career as an intensive care nurse.
While the Bay Area of California is a fantastic area to raise a family, it is one of the most expensive places to live in the USA. When we moved here from the East Coast, our house halved in size but our mortgage doubled! Traffic is frequently awful in the Bay Area, though it has improved since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, in order to avoid sitting in traffic for two hours or more, I used to leave the house at 5am each morning to travel the 50 miles to my o ce in South San Francisco. To avoid the evening traffic, I used to leave the office by 3pm. e COVID-19 pandemic has brought a whole new way of balancing work and life that I would never have thought possible, showing that it is possible to be a successful biotech executive while working from home. It has brought us closer together as a family.
My wife and I became US citizens in 2018 and we love every part of contributing to our new home country. It has offered our family opportunities beyond our expectations.
BLANTYRE, MALAWI DR PUI-YING IROH TAM
Medicine, Class of 2004
I’m originally from Hong Kong and did a rst degree in the US before going to RCSI for my medical degree. After graduating, I stayed in Ireland for two years and, a er nishing my SHO posts, I went to the US for residency and fellowship. At the time I finished fellowship the plan was to move to Nigeria, but we ended up staying in the US and I got a faculty position in Minnesota in Paediatric Infectious Diseases, where I stayed for four years. roughout that time my interest in global health and working in sub-Saharan Africa never waned. I realised several years a er arriving in Minnesota that even though I was enjoying what I was doing there, it wasn’t the work that had inspired me to go into medicine in the first place. I started looking around and found this position at a research institute in Malawi and came out here in 2016.
I am a senior scientist at a clinical research institute, the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme; the parent institution and my employer is the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK. I am based in Malawi fulltime and head the Paediatrics and Child Health Research Group. My work is a combination of clinical work, where I am a consultant paediatrician in the government hospital, and clinical research, which focuses on infections in children relevant to this setting. We see a lot of pneumonia, diarrhoeal disease and sepsis caused by bacteria that are resistant to our commonly used antibiotics. I recently led a multinational clinical trial evaluating a novel treatment of diarrhoea in HIV-infected patients, and currently am the local lead for a multicountry clinical trial evaluating empirical treatments for HIV–infected infants with severe pneumonia.
Malawi
Before I came to live in Malawi, I had been to many other parts of Africa but not this country. I love it here. Malawi is known as the warm heart of Africa, and the people here are warm and friendly; and the country is beautiful. I have lived in many cities around the world and I think what I have traded off in terms of urban activity, such as art galleries and museums, is made up for with a lot more outdoor activity and a better quality of life in many ways. With my family we go hiking, we visit waterfalls and wildlife reserves and Lake Malawi is just a couple of hours away.
Blantyre is the second largest city in Malawi, with an urban population of about a million. I live in a neighbourhood where I have my own plot of land, and a house with a huge garden overlooking a river. It’s a ten-minute drive to the hospital. There are several international schools in the area, so my children have choices. My research is organised around my own schedule and can happen at all hours, but I enjoy it and the work is meaningful and interesting. One of the most satisfying aspects of my work is helping to develop the careers of the (currently twelve) junior researchers who I am supporting, from masters to PhD and postdoc level, in addition to the medical students, clinical officers and registrars that I am teaching, supervising and mentoring. It’s too early to say if I will make Malawi my permanent home. I would like to return to Hong Kong but this is looking increasingly unlikely as Hong Kong is going through political change; I could move to the UK or Europe; and my children were born in the US so they are US citizens. I haven’t yet decided which path to take next. I am in the process of certifying as a professional coach, and am coaching other physicians and academics as an executive/ leadership/ life coach. I help early/mid-career women who are trying to balance career and family and nd a way to create the life they were meant to live (reach out to me on LinkedIn).
It’s something I can do with anyone anywhere in the world. So I feel like a truly global citizen, because where I am located does not limit me in any way.
ABUJA, NIGERIA DR NABILA MANN-ISAH
Medicine (Bahrain), Class of 2019
I am originally from Niger state, two hours away from Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, where I live now. I was away studying for eight years, I did A-levels in the UK before attending RCSI in Bahrain. I got married just before graduation and moved back to Nigeria in July 2019. I had been missing home and was happy to return.
It was not easy to find a job here; there is no standardised recruitment process for internship. As a foreign medical graduate you have to enrol in a privately run training programme to prepare you for a licensing exam. When you pass, you are inducted into the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) and you are given a provisional license to do a one-year internship, a er which you receive your permanent license from MDCN. Having the provisional license doesn’t guarantee an immediate intern place though, you have to apply to multiple places and it can take several months or even years to nd a job. There are so many medical graduates and not enough spots, it’s a big issue and COVID-19 made everything worse. I sat for the licensing exam in November 2019 and got the results a week later but the induction ceremony did not happen until February. I got my license then and applied to hospitals immediately but was not called to an internship position until December. I was hanging around for months with no clear indication of when I was going to be called, and yet the National Hospital of Abuja, the main government hospital, where I currently work, was functioning without house officers for several months. I was on maternity leave from January to April.
Abuja, Nigeria
When I finish my internship, I have to apply to do a one-year service to the country with the National Youth Service Corps, which is compulsory for everyone under the age of 30. As a medical graduate I will do this in a clinical setting and after the year I will sit an exam and then apply for residency. I hope to stay in Abuja and make my life here, and would hope to do my residency in the same hospital.
I had never lived in Abuja before but I have family here and used to visit often. The population is around a million, it is nothing like Lagos, which is huge and very densely populated. It’s a busy city and getting busier, there are better job opportunities here than in other cities and the standard of living is good. Rents are high, there are lots of nice restaurants and we have a few malls. There are some parks and lakes, which are nice for picnics with friends. I live a 20-minute drive from the hospital. The worst thing about Abuja is the traffic, but it’s not as bad as Lagos. Schools are expensive here, you have to pay a lot for good quality education and you have to plan for that.
SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA DR KINAN ALRYAHI
Medicine (Bahrain), Class of 2017
My father is Palestinian, my mother is Bosnian and I grew up and went to school in Jordan. I went to RCSI Bahrain because it was close to home. I did my intern years in Jordan. When I was finished I wanted to get a place on an Ophthalmology Residency Programme. I thought I would go to the UK but my father, who is an ophthalmologist, wanted me to go to Sarajevo, where he studied. We had an on-and-off conversation for a while but I eventually decided to come to Sarajevo as I would get more hands-on experience here and the residency programme is shorter and less competitive. My father and older brother have a private clinic here.
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
I arrived in Sarajevo in 2019 to start the four-year residency programme at the University Hospital. I had visited the city a few times before, and had a good sense of it. I get good hands-on experience with my father and brother in their private practice, where they do some pro bono surgeries for people who cannot afford to pay. In the public hospital the machines tend to be quite old, but we get a lot of rare cases and diseases.
Between the hospital and the clinic I work 8am to 8pm every day, with one day off. Sarajevo is a small city where a lot of people know one another. People are very friendly and the cost of living is pretty low. If you want to go away, it’s easy to jump in the car and head to Croatia, Serbia, or Italy. I wouldn’t be here if there weren’t good restaurants! There is a good social life. The university has delivered its medical programme in English for about six years so the school of medicine is growing and there are many international students. My plan is to stay in Sarajevo. My family hopes to expand the clinic into a hospital and start an Ophthalmology Residency Programme; that’s our aim. I’m excited to do that in Eastern Europe because there are not a lot of opportunities in the region and it will give more access for people who want to pursue a career in ophthalmology. It is a great goal for me.
BOISE, IDAHO, USA FATEMA EBRAHIM
Nursing (Bahrain), Class of 2015
I am originally from Bahrain, and after I completed my degree I took a gap year in Austria, teaching high school students there about Middle Eastern Culture. When I returned to Bahrain I initially worked in the private sector and then took a job at the Ministry of Health working as a nurse in primary healthcare. Then I was awarded a Fulbright scholarship offered by the US Embassy in Bahrain and I moved to Idaho in 2020 to study for a master’s degree in public health. I work part-time in a public health department as a contact tracer for COVID-19.
Boise, Idaho USA
I love it here in Boise. It is very safe and the people are friendly; it feels very family-centred. It’s a fast-growing city, as many people are moving here from California because it is safer and cheaper.
I live on campus in an apartment, it is very different to home but there are so many students here I have found it easy to make friends. Boise has everything you want in a small city – with mountains, parks, hiking trails and a river. I love the countryside and spending time with friends outdoors. The scholarship gives me a monthly stipend but it’s quite expensive here – it’s a city on the rise and you can really feel it getting more expensive. At first I used public transport but after a few months I did my driving test and got a car, which makes it much easier to get around.
I have three classes per week, some in person and some online. The work takes me the whole week to prepare; working and studying is tough. It is a two-year course, after which I have to go back to Bahrain and do something useful for my country. In Bahrain I plan to work as a public health professional. I am studying prevention and intervention and will be able to work on health promotion programmes. If I want to return to the US, I’ll have to wait two years before applying for residency. I’m not sure yet whether I will do that. ■
