BSMS student Stef Tsatsari was awarded the John Snow Anaesthesia Intercalated Award 2021, a funding scheme designed to encourage medical students' interest in anaesthetics and its related disciplines.
The John Snow Anaesthesia Intercalated Awards are intended for intercalating medical students doing research projects on topics related to anaesthesia, critical care, perioperative medicine and pain medicine. They are funded by three streams, with each partner offering £2,000 to successful students to contribute to the student’s living costs:
- the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain & Ireland and Anaesthesia
- the British Journal of Anaesthesia and the Royal College of Anaesthetists (the one I received)
- Neuro Anaesthesia & Critical Care Society
Read our Q&A with Year 4 student Stef Tsatsari to find out more about this award and her experiences as an intercalating student.
Stef Tsatsari
How did you hear about the award and what did the application process entail?
During my intercalation last year we were all made aware of the awards by our Course Director as soon as the application cycle was open and we were encouraged to apply. A university can nominate a maximum of four applications in any given year so the first stage of the application involved us submitting to Imperial, which convened a panel and selected four candidates - I was pleased to hear I was one of the four. Imperial then submitted the four applications to the NIAA who judged all applications received from universities across the UK and announced the successful candidates in June. I was certainly not expecting to be one of the winners and I was thrilled when I found out.
The application included the following assessment criteria:
- Quality of the student, including a breakdown of our academic records to-date
- Quality of the research project
- Supervisor and teaching environment
- A reference from a tutor at our medical school
- A statement from the student regarding their career intentions
Writing the application required significant work and took up a lot of time. It felt like a grant application as I was asked to describe the research we were carrying out and how it was relevant to anaesthesia/intensive care. I’m very glad for the support I received from my supervisor and the rest of the research group I was working with. I’d also like to thank my academic tutor Dr Harry Witchel for providing me with a fantastic reference.
What is it that interests you about anaesthesia and intensive care?
Going back to Phase 1, I really enjoyed learning about physiology, particularly cardiovascular and lung physiology (shoutout to Dr Witchel’s mint slides!) - the science underpinning anaesthesia and critical care is largely based on alterations in physiology and what I like about these specialties is the ability to put these theoretical concepts into practice with instantaneous effects on patients. I will never stop being amazed at how quickly patients drift off to sleep with propofol.
From a clinical perspective, the four-week ACE course (Accident, Critical Care & Anaesthetics) we had in Year 3 gave me valuable insight into the day-to-day work of anaesthetists and intensivists. I loved how these specialties combine theoretical science with procedural skills and it was amazing getting hands-on practice.
I think the most interesting aspect of these specialties lies in the interactions with the patients. Anaesthetists are often the last people patients see before going to sleep so communication and reassurance can really ‘make or break’ their experience.
Can you tell us a little more about your BSc project?
I did a lab-based BSc project with the Critical Care research group at the Anaesthetics, Pain Medicine and Intensive Care (APMIC) department of Imperial. My supervisor, Dr Mike Wilson, who is also the Course Director for the degree, has research interests in understanding the science behind pulmonary aspects of intensive care, and particularly in a phenomenon called ventilator-induced lung injury.
Mechanical ventilation, which became well-known to the public during the Covid-19 pandemic, is an important treatment for patients with lung conditions in the ICU. Interestingly though, ventilation can worsen lung injury through ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI). What's even more surprising is that although during ventilation it is the lungs that are injured, patients often get multi-organ failure and it appears that VILI drives this by systemic inflammation. The process by which this is done is currently unknown and that’s what the project set out to explore. My BSc project was part of my supervisor’s bigger research around a novel pathomechanism of systemic inflammation in VILI.
We used in vivo animal models in which we induced VILI by ventilating mice using ‘injurious’ settings. We then analysed the fluid and tissue samples from the mice to look for inflammatory mediators. Doing this kind of research was such a unique experience for me. I had never done anything like this. When I am asked what I did during my BSc, I usually summarise the entire experience into ‘I was ventilating mice’ - we even had a tiny custom-made ventilator.
Prior to this project, I had zero lab experience. Over the course of 4 months, I learned many new technical skills, such as flow cytometry and ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), and working in a lab definitely tested my resilience. I had to learn to not be disheartened when experiments failed. Doing a lab-based project was very time-consuming and I had to be in the lab multiple times a week, for many hours a day but I am thankful for this experience. I received the best supervision I could have hoped for and was given the opportunity to take initiative in many aspects of the project, despite having no previous experience. It really did feel like it was ‘my’ research.
Lastly, I had the best time working in the APMIC lab with a great team. I really did get to know the people there who shared their advice with me and guided me through many technical aspects of this project. A big shoutout to Rhianna Baldi, my supervisor’s PhD student, who made my experience in the lab amazing, taught me all the lab techniques and stayed late to re-run my failed analyses.
What made you decide to intercalate? And what advice would you have for any BSMS/medical student considering intercalating?
The main reason I intercalated was because I wanted to take a year out from clinical medicine and explore research in more depth. I had not been involved with research before in any shape or form so I was keen to see if I liked it. I’m pleased to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. The degree was perfect for me as it was essentially a ‘crash course’ into research and it was specifically designed for students without any prior experience.
Intercalating can be an amazing experience if you make the best of it. Ideally do a degree you’re interested in but even if it’s not what you expected, you can still gain skills in research and meet lots of new people. If you’re interested in a specific degree, I’d suggest reaching out to your MedSoc Intercalation Rep or to older years via the MedSoc Facebook page and chat with people who’ve already done that degree. If you’re interested specifically in Anaesthetics and/or ICU, feel free to reach out on Instagram to the BSMS Anaesthetics Society and the BSMS Intensive Care Society to ask for specific advice or get involved with our events.
Find out more about intercalating here >