OW Spotlight Sharon Yip

Can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

I was born and raised in Hong Kong. In 2012, I moved to the UK and joined the Apsley. After College, I studied medicine at St Peter’s College, Oxford, and completed my clinical studies at University College London.

 

What inspired you to work in medicine?

Around the time I started at Wellington, I read many of Oliver Sacks’s case histories and became fascinated with neuroscience. That eventually led me to medicine as I was interested in carrying out research and directly caring for patients.

 

What is your speciality and how has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your normal working routine?

I’m currently working in the Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Free Hospital. COVID-19 has completely changed my last year in medical school; just a few months ago, I thought I’d be off travelling around South Asia on my medical elective during this time. I graduated a few months early in a Zoom “virtual graduation” after our final exams, so that some of our year could start work as interim foundation doctors.

 

What advice would you give to students or young OWs who would like to join the medical profession?

Any budding medic should proactively read the latest research in whichever topics catch your eye, and maintain an interest in humanities subjects as well. The best doctors I know are well-rounded and well-connected.

 

What is it like working within health care at the moment?

At the Royal Free the PPE provision is thankfully adequate, although it changes every week depending on what our managers can find. Our ICU is still much more thinly stretched than normal – where at a normal time there would be 30-odd beds, there were at least 66 patients in ICU at the peak of the epidemic. I have since gained immense respect for the work that ICU nurses do.

 

What are your career highlights?

I hope to fill this space as I get further in my career, but for now here are some fun anecdotes from work this month:

– Me asking for help around the wards: “Are you a doctor or a diver?” The surge volunteers do all sorts, including divers, play specialists, kindergarten teachers…

– On my scrub trousers falling down as there were only XXL left: “thank goodness I have PPE on.”

 

Do you have a fond memory from your time at Wellington that you would like to share, or teacher that really stood out?

I remember as a student I had a lot of spare energy and no idea how to channel it productively. My biology teacher, Mr Goves, was a fantastic teacher who noticed this and frequently recommended extra reading for me. He also encouraged me to apply to Oxford and gifted me his pharmacology flashcards with full confidence that I would do well. He was also passionate about teaching students with special education needs and that was quite inspiring.

Featured in the 2019 – 2020 Yearbook.