October 2024
What is your current role?
I am a consultant anaesthetist with a special interest in congenital cardiac anaesthesia and I am also Head of Service for Evelina London theatres and anaesthesia.
Tell us about a typical day
There is no typical day! On clinical days, after waking my kids up for school, I cycle to work to arrive at 7.30am. I see the patients for the day, preparing them and their families for anaesthesia and then go to meet the whole team in theatres for team brief at 8.15am. I then anaesthetise between 2 and 8 patients who are having surgery, either bringing them to intensive care or recovery at the end of each case. I anaesthetise patients from preterm babies to adults. The biggest weight difference I had in one day was 700g to 230kg! I really enjoy the practical and logistical challenges that clinical work entails. The day ends when the surgery ends and this can be quite variable.
What's the best thing about your job?
The best bit about my job is definitely the patients. I enjoy meeting them, explaining what will happen from the anaesthetic side of things, allaying their fears and making them feel as comfortable as I can. I enjoy making their perioperative journey as smooth as possible. I also enjoy the teamwork in theatre and the camaraderie amongst the whole team.
What is your proudest moment?
My proudest moments have been when anaesthetising for tricky procedures that have gone well. Anaesthetists are often forgotten in the patient journey but they are an important part of the theatre team who all work to ensure the patient's perioperative journey goes as well as possible.
In my management role, I have overview of clinical governance, education, maintenance of estates, staff training, job planning and recruitment. We try to make sure the department runs as efficiently as possible. We are currently working to get our paediatric anaesthetic department accredited by Anaesthesia Clinical Services Accreditation (ACSA), a voluntary scheme for NHS and independent sector organisations that offers quality improvement through peer review.
What's next for your team?
An important project for our team is planning for the role of theatres and anaesthesia for children's cancer services at Evelina London Children's Hospital. Specialist children's cancer services for children from south London and much of south east England will be moving to our children's hospital in the future and while lots of the surgery will take place at Evelina London, some types of surgery (such as surgery for brain and bone cancers) will take place elsewhere.
We will be doing lots of work in advance of the move with our partners to ensure everything is in place for children who need surgery, lines, scans and other procedures that require anaesthesia as part of their cancer treatment.
Find out more about our future children's cancer services.
Thank you to the children and young people who have so brilliantly illustrated our blog pages.