COVID career change

Mine is a story of roughly three thirds. I am a doctor, a musician and a scientist. This week was fairly typical; I spent many hours in my home studio composing as part of an international online song writing workshop led by Robin Pecknold of the Fleet Foxes (he commented that one of my songs was “incredible”, which really helped my imposter syndrome). I spent many hours in the lab, feeding my Adipose Derived Stem Cells media which either contains standard foetal bovine serum (FBS), or human platelet lysate (HPL) as culture supplement, and preparing them for plating to investigate effects and that of using nanoparticle labelling on their form and function. I also spent many hours corresponding with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s office to arrange another meeting (next week) to discuss Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for NHS and social care workers to protect them from airborne transmission of COVID-19. In addition I started my half marathon training schedule and attended my Spanish class (both of which are life goals); they make my body and brain hurt, respectively.

So how did I get here I hear you say?

Since I graduated Glasgow’s Wolfson Medical School in 2012, I have been working towards a career as a surgeon, and spent the last 5 years training in plastic, burns and reconstruction surgery in NHS Glasgow. One of my MD supervisors (Prof Andrew M Hart) performed the first double hand transplant for a Scottish patient (https://findingyourfeet.net/cor/cors-story/), and we look after patients who need reconstruction following cancer, trauma or burns injuries. It is a beautiful specialty as, through helping rebuild the person’s physical body, you also help restore their psychological sense of self. The surgery is fascinating too. Since 2017 I worked part time in the hospital, and part time in the lab in the Centre for the Cellular Microenvironment, studying peripheral nerve regeneration. Each side of the job inspired the other, and my lab training gave me a multidisciplinary, and creative approach to problem solving. 

In March 2020 lots of members of our team were redeployed to look after COVID-19 patients. I spent time working in ICU looking after the patients sickest with the disease, and some time redeployed to run A+E minor injuries. We were soon told that the hospital only had two weeks worth of PPE left, and that global supply chains were broken. I thought someone ought to do something about that; so I enlisted help from colleagues, friends and family and within a week we had 400 volunteers, had joined forces with similar groups in London and the Highlands and began a UK wide effort. We soon registered as a charity MedsupplydriveUK (1190337). My lab supervisor Dr Mathis Riehle put me in touch with relevant academics, and the engineering department at UofG started using their 3d printers and injection moulders to make protective face visors; we delivered 10,000 of them to those in need. Through the first year of the pandemic, we arranged >500,000 pieces of high quality PPE to be donated from industry and delivered to NHS and social care workers all over the UK, for free. It gave me hope that great things can be achieved when proactive and optimistic people work together as a community.

Since then, it became glaringly obvious that it was no longer quantity but quality of PPE that was the issue. We know that COVID-19 has highest transmission through the airborne route (Greenhaulgh et al 2020, and Public Health posters on bus stops all over the UK); we also know that surgical masks do not protect from airborne pathogens (HSE 2008), and that in comparison FFP3 grade masks can achieve 0% infection rates for at risk hospital workers (Ferris et al. 2020). However, to this day, and despite WHO changing it’s recommendations this year, the majority of UK health and social care workers are still supplied with just a surgical mask when caring for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19. The UK has one of the highest health care worker death rates from COVID-19 in the world (Amnesty International 2020.) 

So, I approached PPE manufacturers and designed a reusable FFP3 grade mask which provides optimum protection from airborne infections, fits >95% of people, is comfortable, provides x10 cost savings per month (Chalikondwa et al. 2020) and is vastly more environmentally sustainable than disposable FFP3 options. I also started campaigning; I joined forces with 28 Royal Colleges, organisations and Unions who represent members of every job role in the NHS and social care; we wrote to, telephoned and met with all of the relevant people we could think of, to demand FFP3 protection and improved ventilation to protect workers and their patients, families and communities from COVID-19. I have been on national 6pm news, ITV and bbc radio, I was invited to speak on bbc debatenight  (https://twitter.com/hughes_eilir/status/1455640351046311945?s=21) and I have another meeting with Nicola Sturgeon next week (give me luck). The struggle continues.

Music is my happy flow state, brings me great joy and contentment and makes me more productive as a human in every other realm of my life. Over the last year I have arranged harmonies, sang vocals or played harmonium on three records as a session musician; Broken Chanter’s album Catastrophe Hits won The Weekender Awards Album of the Year 2021, Man of the Minch album The Tide is at the Turning won Scene Alba Album of the Year 2021 and A. Wesley Chung is planned for release later this year (watch this space). I am very proud of my friends for creating these beautiful masterpieces, and delighted to be invited to contribute creatively. For Wesley’s album, we were recording in deepest darkest lockdown and so I fashioned myself a sound booth in a cupboard at home, sound treated it with apple boxes from my local grocers and taught myself how to use recording and production equipment. We then sent music files back and forth across the internet like pen pals.

This was my last live gig before COVID-19 lockdown, with Broken Chanter on BBC television 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34qEmTBWbUQ

For the majority of the pandemic I have had to return to full-time NHS work, to help with the COVID-19 effort. There were a lot of 90 hour weeks working in rooms without windows. Although I loved many aspects of being a surgeon, I started to realise that in order to be the surgeon I wanted to be, I would have to sacrifice the majority of my other passions and interests. The PPE work felt too important, the music work felt too good for me, and my scientific work too interesting to compromise. So, in September of 2021 I decided to leave surgical training to spend two years in the lab working towards my MD thesis. Having a bit of extra time and headspace, I have started writing my own album in collaboration with my dear and talented friend Hannah Jarrett Scott. Long term, I plan to keep an involvement in academia, train as a GP in the NHS and continue to do minor operating, perhaps I’ll try some expedition, humanitarian and event work. My current lab work focusses on making cell therapies for peripheral nerve regeneration more translatable by studying a tracking modality (Super Paramagentic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles) and reducing use of animals and their derivatives in cell culture. This has been challenging due to COVID, in many ways, but I am looking forward to getting settled into our new ARC lab home. I am excited about presenting my work locally, regionally and internationally again, and to linking together surgeons and scientists in collaboration, with the aim of improving outcomes and quality of life for patients with peripheral nerve injury.


Thanks for reading and take good care.

First published: 23 August 2021

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