Ghufran Al Sayed talks about how she moved from medicine to public health, with a focus on adolescent wellbeing
I wanted to learn medicine in order to break out of it and innovate.
Ghufran Al Sayed
Ghufran Al Sayed was beginning her clinical work as a medical student in Manchester when Covid hit. Like many medical students at the time, she was redeployed onto Covid wards and the experience was hugely challenging. It also made her rethink what she wanted from a career in medicine.
Ghufran’s parents had raised her with a broad view of education and she decided to take an opportunity to do a master’s in public health, which made her change her views on health. As part of the course, she worked on adolescent mental health, creating a whole range of educational resources, and is now beginning a PhD in Medical Science. It will take that work forward and will mean working closely with teenagers to determine what they need most.
Early years
Ghufran [2024] was born and grew up in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Her parents, both lawyers, are originally from northern Sudan and moved to the UAE in the 1990s. Growing up, Ghufran’s parents ensured that she and her two younger siblings learned about and understood their Sudanese heritage, while fostering a sense of home in the multicultural environment of Abu Dhabi.
Ghufran says her parents placed a high value on education, but didn’t push her into a particular pathway, being open and supportive of her desire to explore different options. She showed academic potential from early on and, being a naturally curious person, loved science. “I wanted to understand why things work the way they do,” she says. She also had a passion for music and saw music – in the form of rhythm and beats – in many other subjects, such as English, and was interested in how certain harmonies could make you feel. “To me, everything was music and science and music went hand in hand,” she states.
Ghufran was in every school band and performed in front of influential local and international figures which helped boost her sense of self-confidence. Her main instrument was piano, but she was keen to learn all the instruments and she would try out a new one regularly. “I could hear a different emotion from the different sounds each instrument plays,” she says.
Her academic potential was clear to her teachers and family, but she says she was always aware that there are many ways to be successful and that success is about understanding yourself and the things that make you grow as a person. “My parents put me on the path, but the path was wide and they held my hand while I was walking it so I could really thrive,” she states.
Manchester
At the end of school, Ghufran decided to opt for science instead of music because she was keen to help people and felt she could continue to enjoy music as a hobby. She applied to the University of Manchester’s medical school and says her experience of living in a very multicultural society served her well in terms of understanding and interacting with patients from different backgrounds and cultures. She started in 2018 and by 2020 was beginning clinical work, just as the pandemic struck.
Her planned clinical work was scrapped and medical students were sent to the Covid wards to help doctors. “It was very scary,” says Ghufran. “I was on the frontline without being fully qualified for what I was dealing with. That amplifies any fear of failure. I saw death for the first time through a window. The family was not allowed in. I did not think I would see death in such an emotional, isolated space. I felt so responsible for people’s lives and was afraid that I would let people down. We were told to ask for help, but it wasn’t as easy in the middle of the pandemic and as a doctor you feel you are the person to provide help.”
Ghufran began to question whether the typical career path to a clinical consultant was the only way for her to make a difference in healthcare. In 2021 she got the chance to pursue a master’s in Public Health. “I was still curious about science and still wanting to help people and understand why things happen,” she says. “It was my one chance to explore other options in medicine. I said yes to all sorts of opportunities to learn about different aspects of Public Health.” She adds that if Covid had not happened she would probably not have switched from hospital medicine to public health medicine. Yet it’s a field in which she says she has found ‘so much joy’ because it is still part of medicine, but is focused on helping people before they get sick.
Adolescent health
During her master’s, Ghufran worked with the World Health Organization and as a youth representative for the European Public Health Association on mental health and stigma and learned about digital health. She met many big figures in the public health field and created educational resources and webinars for teenagers, including books, videos and social media content on topics such as adolescent sexual and reproductive health, Polio and antimicrobial resistance. Her master’s dissertation won the top prize for international students at the University of Manchester.
“I had found what I loved to do and I thrived,” she says. “My whole view of medicine had shifted and I could not see myself working in a hospital setting. Medicine is much broader than that. It’s not just about treating the symptoms of someone when they are sick. What I love about public health is that it gives people agency over their health, something that can be extended to every aspect of their lives. I am interested in understanding what people need, in understanding their context and environment and how that affects their health and in involving them in finding solutions.”
After her master’s she returned to medicine to get her degree, but the experience changed how she approached her studies. “I wanted to learn medicine in order to break out of it and innovate,” she says.
PhD
Ghufran is doing a PhD in Medical Science at the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit following on from her master’s. Through her PhD, she hopes to leverage digital solutions to understand and mitigate childhood obesity. More widely, she hopes for her work to reduce health inequalities, promote adolescent wellbeing and agency in their health and strengthen collaborative networks between change-makers and the wider population.
As such, she is keen to work with teenagers to find what works. “You can’t make assumptions if you want to find what works for people and you need to bear in mind that their needs may change with time,” says Ghufran. “I will stop at nothing to help people, but I have to be sure that what I am doing is really helping people,” she states.
She says that the broad network and support from Gates Cambridge is what is enabling her to strive towards innovation with her PhD. She adds: “I am so happy to be part of a group that is willing to break boundaries and to innovate to change people’s lives for the better instead of following a system designed to be efficient rather than cater to people’s needs.”
