A chance encounter with the person who is now his wife led to a significant alteration to Adam Dossaji’s location and career trajectory.
It was soon after he had graduated from medical school that Adam (OE 2003-2010) met Saima Shikari, a doctor from New York. For a year they flew back and forth between the US and the UK before deciding to get married. During that time Adam completed all his licensing exams, allowing him to practice in the States. “I moved to the USA shortly before getting married and applied to be a resident in internal medicine,” he says.
Adam has just started his Internal Medicine Residency at Baystate Medical Centre in Central Massachusetts, where he lives in Springfield with Saima. “It’s a role that doesn’t exactly exist in the UK,” he says. “I basically cover all non-surgical medical problems in the hospital for adults. I tell my non-medical family and friends that I do what JD and Dr Cox do on Scrubs – a programme I watched at lunchtimes on a very small screen in the Sixth Form Common Room at QE!”
He remembers the School visits with particular fondness and says he now realises what a strong foundation QE laid in its boys. “It was challenging, and, at times, I complained and thought things were arcane or unnecessary. Looking back, I now see how the requirements for attention to details, for us to think for ourselves, and to take the harder road, built my resilience and gave me a belief that anything was possible.” He especially picks out the Science and Mathematics departments for their “incredible” support during his A-levels. Among the trips he enjoyed, he names the Swanage GCSE Geography trip, a visit to Mill Hill observatory and the German exchange.
After leaving QE, Adam took up a place at Kings College London School of Biomedical Sciences, graduating in Psychology with Basic Medical Sciences in 2013 and also gaining from Kings a Diploma in Theology and Philosophy. He then went on to Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ School of Medical Education (GKT) where he was awarded his MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery) in 2016. The previous year, as part of his training he spent four weeks at the Lady Willingdon Hospital in Manali, Himachal Pradesh in India, in general internal medicine and four weeks in Critical Care and Emergency Medicine in the Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai. He completed his Foundation Programme at the University Hospital of Wales, where he spent four months in Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary surgery, four months in A&E and a further four months in General Internal Medicine (Respiratory) in 2017.
Among the accolades he gained during his training were the National Poster Presentations prize at the Royal College of Psychiatrists International Congress in 2013 and the Royal Society of Medicine Phillip Ellman Prize in Respiratory Medicine (2014).
His current role involves working in rotation through the wards, in intensive care, in outpatients and in all the medical departments for three years. He will then move on to further training. In the future, Adam is looking forward to specialising further. “I have a keen interest in pulmonology and critical care. It involves managing some of the most acutely unwell people in the hospital, helping patients and families through some of the most difficult periods of their lives.”
His professional experience of life in the USA has been overwhelmingly positive. “America is at a very unusual point. Most people’s views of the country are based on its domestic and international politics, which at the moment is very chaotic. Personally, my experience of the USA has been very different: it is an incredibly open country, where large institutions are desperate for the best employees they can find, regardless of where you are from. They highly regard international experience and yearn to learn about different perspectives.”
“Massachusetts is an amazing place to practice and learn medicine; we are one hour from Harvard and Yale, and home to the New England Journal of Medicine. There is an argument that healthcare is more expensive in America, and the insurance system has got flaws; however, many hospitals in America are at the forefront of advances in healthcare, relentlessly expanding horizons, and at the cutting edge of treatments and cures for diseases such as cancer.”
Several of Adam’s OE friends studied Medicine, although staying in close touch can be a challenge. “It’s great having that connection, but the distance makes it harder. I am sure I will see many of their names in medical journals in coming years.”
A keen table tennis player when he was in the UK, he has pursued this even further in the US. “I’ve joined a club and now play a lot of table tennis.”
He has re-established contact with the School and hopes in the future to be able to provide information to current boys interested in studying Medicine, particularly those who wish to work abroad.
At School, Sahil was elected a drama director and also ran the QE dance club for four years. He has built significantly on this QE experience at Harvard: “I was the lead male actor in a play called JOGGING, which was performed eight times at the American Repertory Theatre and directed by professional director Melissa Nussbaum. The play is set in Beirut, deals with themes of religious violence, feminism, and motherhood, and involved me playing six different men at different stages of life. It was definitely the most intense (and rewarding) theatrical experience I’ve had so far; luckily, my mum was able to visit and watch!”
During his first year at Harvard, he has taken a few trips with fellow students, which has served both to deepen friendships and to further his love of travel. These included a road trip & trekking expedition in Texas and a last-minute trip to Iceland a week before examinations, with Sahil and his fellow students taking advantage of $100 tickets and studying on the aeroplane to make sure their results did not suffer.
The VEX EDR World Championships, which is open to pupils from Years 10–13 (or ‘high school’, in American parlance), bring together 600 élite teams from around the world, pitting against each other national champions from 46 different countries, as well as state champions from around the US.
Alpha were paired for this match with a team from Rolling Hills, California. “Hybrid’s efforts were valiant, but excellent defence from the Chinese and Canadian combination saw their opponents win by a narrow margin of 115-92.”
In total, some 341 of the QE entrants won certificates – a significant increase on last year’s tally of 279 – with 154 achieving gold and a further 120 taking silver and 67 gaining bronze. Nationally, it is only the top 40% of pupils who receive gold, silver and bronze certificates, which are given in the ratio 1:2:3.
Best in School certificates went to Maxwell Johnson, of Year 7, and Yash Makwana, of Year 8, who achieved identical scores of 130 out of a possible 135 in the UK Mathematics Trust competition.
History teacher Simon Walker said: “The trip was important both emotionally and analytically, helping students understand how trench warfare worked and appreciate the experience of those who fought, as well as giving them an opportunity to reflect on the cost of war and consider what we can learn from the way soldiers have been memorialised.”
One striking contrast was seen in the ways the fallen were commemorated at:
Other memorable highlights of the trip to the sites in France and Belgium included the sight of Lochnagar Crater, the biggest crater of World War I, where boys learned about tunnelling and the use of mines. They attended the Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate in Ypres to commemorate soldiers lost in the 1914–1918 – a ceremony performed every evening since 1927, even during World War II. They also learned how medical provision developed during the conflict, visiting a field hospital where John McCrae worked as a surgeon and composed his famous poem, In Flanders Fields.
There were lighter moments, too, including a popular visit to the Leonida chocolate shop and the time when the boys’ keen-eyed coach driver spotted a World War I wire fence post unearthed and left at the roadside by a local farmer.