My name is Soroush Heydari, I am a fifth year medical student at University College London, and I joined the International Institute of Compassionate Care to look forward to working as a doctor again.
For me, the core of medicine was always helping people and having a significant, positive impact. When I started studying medicine I realised that there were other factors at play in the development of us medical students into doctors, and junior doctors into seniors, that veered away from that fulfilling path. A lot of the time it feels like all you are truly doing is trying to keep yourself afloat, while your ability to have impact feels increasingly limited. I realised that this internal conflict, above all else, was pulling me away from the one thing I always wanted to do and be. But the IICC’s work in exploring the problems, and their self-sustaining solutions, gave me hope. This hope urged me to not only stay in medicine, but spread the message, and play as active a role as I could in helping build a brighter future for healthcare.
My primary role in the IICC is leading the organisation of the Compassionate Care Awards, which aims to revitalise the spirit of compassion in healthcare by uniting its workers, students, and patients, and promoting the best role models of compassionate care amongst them. I hope to leverage my experience in marketing, sales, and event organisation in both business and nonprofit settings to make the reach and implementation of this meaningful and equally critical message as successful as possible.