Dr Rishi Patel
Rishi is a public health specialty registrar in the Thames Valley deanery. He graduated from Bristol University in 2012 with degrees in medicine and physiological sciences (first class honours). He completed his Foundation training in the South Thames deanery, gaining experience of working in both acute and community healthcare settings. Following this, Rishi spent two years working as an Emergency Medicine doctor in Australia. He enjoyed the experience of working abroad in a different healthcare system and became increasingly interested in inequalities related to healthcare access and delivery across different sub-populations and geographies.
Upon relocating back to the UK in 2016, Rishi worked as a Clinical Research Fellow at Oxford University where he was a clinical lead for a large global diabetes clinical trial. Highlights included travelling internationally to collaborate with academic and industry colleagues and developing academic skills by co-authoring several peer reviewed publications. Rishi was a recipient of the Radcliffe Department of Medicine Award for Excellence in 2018.
Rishi commenced public health specialty training in 2018. After graduating with a MSc in Global Health and Epidemiology in his first year, he subsequently completed placements with the health protection team at Public Health England and in local government. Most recently he has been working with stakeholders in local integrated care systems to reduce inequalities in COVID-19 vaccine uptake across population sub-groups. He is particularly interested in understanding how public health principles can be embedded across all aspects of health policy and strategy to improve population health and reduce inequalities.
Reason for applying for the scheme
Rishi believes this scheme offers a unique opportunity to work with, and learn from, senior leaders in national healthcare organisations to gain vital first-hand leadership and management experience. Whilst he has embraced any leadership and management opportunities that have arisen on an ad hoc basis in his career to date, he is looking forward to developing his leadership competence in a more structured way through the scheme. He is confident that the scheme will help him to identify his own strengths and weaknesses as a leader, so he is able to reflect on these and prioritise areas for development. As well as benefiting from the senior organisational mentorship offered in the scheme, he is also looking forward to meeting and collaborating with the other Fellows.
Rishi was delighted to be offered a placement with Bupa on the scheme. He is looking forward to understanding how safe, effective and innovative patient-centred healthcare can be delivered on a foundation of strong clinical governance in the commercial sector. He is particularly excited about being given the opportunity to develop a range of skills in areas such as strategy and policy development, project management and clinical quality improvement.
