“My favourite part of the programme was the clinical placement. As Imperial provides us with the clinical placement opportunities, we don’t have to face the stress of finding our own clinical placement.”
Melika Bankipoufard shared how the MSc Medical Ultrasound (Vascular) at the National Heart and Lung Institute has fulfilled her passion in medical imaging and brought her one important step closer to starting her own clinic.
What were you doing before you came to Imperial?
When I was ten years old, my family and I moved to Dubai from Iran. We have stayed in Dubai since then and I did my bachelor study in medical diagnostic imaging in the University of Sharjah, which is in another city in the United Arab Emirates.
As the cities are so close, I used to drive back and forth every day. The programme helped me a lot in building my career and finding my strength in the field of medicine. Since I was 17, I knew I wanted to get specialisation training in ultrasound, and I tried hard to convince my family to send me to the UK. But my father disagreed and worried that I was too young to go alone.
So I finished my bachelor back home and in the beginning of 2022, I started sending applications to UK universities. I learnt about Imperial from one of my professors. She was an alumnus of this course and she pushed me really hard. She was my supporter. She has always believed in me that I can do it.
And has your past experience helped you make the decision?
Well, I don’t really have that much of experience. The only experience I got was the training from my previous programme, where we started to attend the clinical placement from our second year. I know commonly in the UK, undergraduate programmes run for three years, but back home it is four years. And we started the clinical placements as a year two student. The good thing about my programme was that we got to experience the latest technology. Because Dubai is one of the most advanced cities in the world and they are preparing us to be able to work anywhere.
Besides that, I volunteered during COVID in the radiology department in one of the public hospitals in Dubai, which helped me to build my confidence. At the back of my mind, I always had ultrasound as one of the top specialties that I wanted to pursue. I still remember that day when I got into Imperial, I was having lunch with my family and I had already given up because I hadn’t heard back for three months at that time. So I was already thinking okay, I have not gotten in, let me try other colleges.
We were having lunch and then my friend, she called me and said, ‘Check your email!’ And when I checked my mailbox I saw the email that said, ‘Congratulations, you have been admitted to Imperial!’
Amazing. Aside from your mentor who also studied this course, aside from what they had told you, what did you actually expect from the course at Imperial before starting?
Oh, that’s a very nice question. Before coming to the programme, I already knew that Imperial offers the medical ultrasound master’s in both echocardiography and vascular streams. So when I was having the discussion with my mentor back in Dubai, she told me to go for the vascular stream because vascular ultrasound is applicable to the whole body. As my background is in medical diagnostic imaging, I already knew how to do general ultrasound.
At the very beginning I thought there was going to be a lot of spoon-feeding because back home the study in the college focuses more on spoon-feeding knowledge to the students. But it was not the way I had expected. Now that I have almost finished the course and can submit my dissertation, I can say that through the course I have gained the confidence and also learned the skills to do self-study. The course gave me all the skills to help me to get to know myself, my weaknesses and my strength so that I can learn on my own without asking for help. I still do ask for help when needed and people are ready to help. However, it wasn’t like you got spoon-fed and be told about every single thing.
Great. Who inspired you during the course? Whether it be a module lead, an academic, or one of your peers?
My inspiration when I was studying at Imperial was Dr Mo Aslam. He’s a great tutor, supervisor, mentor, and a doctor full of experience. He shared all his knowledge and experiences with us. Even though the cases we see every day are unique, out of millions of cases there might be one or two rare cases. When he come across such cases, he would share them with us without any hesitation because one day we might also need to face them.
Melika with Dr Mohammed Aslam, Course Director of MSc Medical Ultrasound (Vascular) at NHLI.
Talking more about the course specifically, what was your favourite module? Was it the research part?
My favourite part of the programme was the clinical placement. As Imperial provides us with clinical placement opportunities, we don’t have to face the stress of finding our own clinical placement. Most of the vascular scientists already knew the students because we had received training and guidance from them during the course. I knew someone who got into another programme where they have to find the clinical placement on their own, that can be really stressful.
So thankfully I didn’t have to face this struggle. I really enjoyed the clinical placement. The programme requires a student to go to the clinical placement twice a week. But I managed to attend an average of four days a week during the placement. So compared with other students, I have fulfilled more clinical hours, it was not a must but I just wanted to get more experience.
So you’re very motivated!
Yes, I am.
More broadly, how have you found studying in London or at the Hammersmith Campus?
Well, I really liked it. When I was younger, I used to hear people say that the UK is the best in terms of education and health care. Of course, I cannot compare it to Dubai because Dubai is quite a new city. They still keep, you know, updating itself. But I could say I really, really love London. I’ve been to some other cities just for sightseeing, but if I had to choose another place to live after Dubai, I would definitely choose London.
I just wanted to put my time as much as I could in the clinical work. So I was either at Hammersmith Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital or St Mary’s Hospital. They are all part of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and you get to see different cases when you are working at different sites.
What advice would you give to someone starting the course or considering applying?
I would say my advice for people who are considering starting the course would be that they should be really interested in and have the passion to work with the patients closely. Compared to other imaging modalities, ultrasound is more operator-dependent, and you need to have really good communication skills with the patients while trying to calm them. You might come across emotional patients and you need to provide emotional support to them. If you are passionate about it, passionate about the vascular specialty itself, you will definitely enjoy it.
What’s your short-term and long-term plan?
My short-term plan for now is to go back home to see my family because I definitely needed to take some rest. I will register for some accreditation exams. I will do the one for America first, which is called ARDMS. And then if I decided to come back and get a job in London, I will do the SVT, which is the Society of Vascular Technologies Accreditation. It’s my priority to keep myself accredited.
In the long term, I plan to open up my own clinic in Dubai. I don’t know how long it will take, but I’d like to open a private clinic. Besides, I will have a training centre within the clinic. In the Middle East, the vascular scans are still quite new. And now because of the knowledge that I got, I’m really willing to share it with others and to train students. In Dubai, I have come across many students that would really like to learn ultrasound. Since I moved to London, I started teaching privately online on a platform for students in the UK. They are from all across UK in different universities who are studying medical imaging.
What three words would your friends use to describe you?
Passionate could be one, caring, and I always put other people as a priority.
And what is your study soundtrack or recent listening on Spotify?
Well, I really like Persian songs, so my top playlists are Persian songs. I sometimes do listen to some podcasts and hear about other people’s experiences with struggling patients, patient rejection and so on. Just to have an idea if I face such a situation and how to handle it in the future.
To learn more about the postgraduate programmes offered by the National Heart and Lung Institute, please visit our Postgraduate taught website.