Yazan Mousa

In March 2020, the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic hit the National Health Service, where I have been working as a junior doctor since 2017 after completing my primary medical qualification in Jordan. At that time, I was a second year Core Medical Trainee rotating in respiratory medicine and considering my options for future specialty training.

As a result of a series of unexpected events, my senior registrar colleague was forced to step up as acting consultant, and I was chosen to fill his shoes as acting medical and respiratory registrar. What happened as a consequence of this was a daily exposure to extremely sick patients at risk of rapid deterioration, often requiring respiratory support in the form of non-invasive ventilation or intubation and mechanical ventilation. This necessitated very frequent interactions and liaising with the critical care teams, including specialist practitioners, outreach nurses, registrars and consultants. It is this series of events that laid the foundations to me wanting to pursue a career in dual respiratory intensive care medicine. It is also a result of this pandemic that I began integrating point of care ultrasound (POCUS) into daily practice - primarily thoracic scans to prognostify severity of acute respiratory distress syndrome in COVID-19.

I have now almost completed a year of respiratory training and have been accepted to commence a POCUS fellowship in intensive care in August. This MSc will complement this transition perfectly and supplement the move to a critical care environment. It will serve to increase my confidence and the theoretical knowledge required to attend to such complex patients and operate organ support devices. I have already set my mind on POCUS as the topic of choice for my final dissertation and have received strong support from my clinical leads. Finally, this MSc will lay excellent groundwork to begin my studies for upcoming critical care specialty exams, giving me a competitive advantage over colleagues at a similar stage in their careers. Suffice it to say, it is an absolute privilege to have been awarded this scholarship from the RCPE.