Consultant Neurologist
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust

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I’m Krishna. So I’m a consultant neurologist,

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which is a senior doctor who specializes in brain and nerve diseases.

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Typically, that might involve diseases such as migraines

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people with headaches, with numbness or weakness,

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or people with blackouts.

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There’s probably a bit of a cliché, but it really is very satisfying

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to see patients who have some symptom or some problem

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that’s significantly affecting their lives and to actually be able

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to make a difference, either cure it or minimize it with different

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treatments, with medicines or with surgery or with procedures.

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So, for example, one patient I saw was an elderly man who had double vision

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and a droopy eyelid and couldn’t see clearly – wasn’t able to drive anymore

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and I diagnosed a condition that was affecting the muscles,

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controlling his eye movements and gave him tablets and within a few days

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his double vision cleared up so he could read again and he could drive again.

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And so it brings about a big functional improvement in his symptoms.

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It’s very satisfying to be able to do that.

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Equally satisfying is also teaching, and that’s a big interest of mine.

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So I teach medical students or doctors in training or nurses or physiotherapists.

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We do like to be organized and methodical

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and partly because of the structure of the brain and the nerves we like to.

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So it’s like detective work.

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We like to narrow down and pinpoint

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where a disease could be in the network that is our brain and nerves.

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One example would be if someone had a blackout

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and I’m trying to work out what caused that, then I’d be asking the patient

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of course, what happened before and after what they were doing.

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But then I’d also be keen to talk to an eyewitness,

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I’d be keen to chat to paramedics, A&E staff, to other doctors

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and look through their whole medical history and try to piece together

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all these different aspects and get different accounts of what happened.

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And then I’ll come to a conclusion.

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I focused on sciences for A-levels.

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I did chemistry, maths and physics.

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After that, I applied for Imperial College School of Medicine

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in London,

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and my attraction to that particular course was that it was a six year degree

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which incorporated further research, so a year of research, where we obtained

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an additional science degree and mine was in neuroscience.

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So after medical school the pathway was quite long for me.

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So I spent 13 years in training and this involved a lot of shift work,

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so a lot of night

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shifts, a lot of weekend shifts and we experience different specialties.

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I took a year out to go to Australia.

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I was working as a doctor in Sydney.

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That was an amazing experience.

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It was just great to be in a different country, learn about different health care systems.

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I also did a PhD in epilepsy genetics.

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So if you enjoy talking to people

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and if you enjoy helping people, then I think medicine is the best career out there.

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Okay.