SOLACE inspired me

Written by Alina Shrestha

I am from Camberley, a small town in Surrey. My first degree was in Medical Pharmacology from Cardiff University and am now in my second year of Medicine at Keele. I grew up in one of the least developed countries, Nepal, and moved to the UK at the age of 15. After moving here, I worked in the National Health Service for the past seven years (volunteer, carer, medical lab assistant) which made me passionate to pursue a career in health and widened my interest in global health. To learn more about global health, I did a summer internship in China where I was able to work as the interface of collaboration between hospitals in China and the UK.

Hearing about SOLACE made me realise all the things I had learnt throughout my time in different countries and the profound impact new medical innovations can have in people’s lives. Thus, I decided to make a poster summarising major global health innovations that has been impactful so far. For this, I chose top 8 innovations from different parts of the world that I came across through watching documentaries, following the news and some research. I chose the world map as the background and added the respective medical innovations on the map according to the country of invention. At the bottom of the poster, I added short summary to describe each of the medical innovations and how it has had an impact. Some examples include Zipline, use of drones to deliver life-saving medical supplies such as blood, vaccines to remote areas currently used in Tanzania, Lucky iron fish is another innovation in this poster which is an iron cooking tool that adds healthy amount of iron to meals. This tool aims to prevent iron deficiency that affects up to 2 billion people worldwide. In fact, a recent 12 month randomised controlled trial showed a 46% reduction in prevalence of anaemia in Cambodia suggesting the effectiveness of this innovative food fortification.

Alina Shrestha at the Nepalese Doctors Association (UK)

Lastly, I am incredibly grateful for Dr Lisa Dikomitis for organising the SOLACE competition as I was able to present my poster at a national conference organised by the Nepalese Doctors Association (UK) to leading clinicians and students. More importantly, I was overwhelmed to see the genuine interest of everyone in my research and the opportunity I had to share my research with such respectable seniors.

Poster I presented at the Nepalese Doctors Association (UK)