A Day in the Life of Reena Sharma, Adult Metabolic Medicine Consultant

A Day in the Life of Reena Sharma, Adult Metabolic Medicine Consultant

By Reena Sharma

As a consultant in adult metabolic medicine I am responsible for looking after the adult patients with rare genetic metabolic diseases and provide clinics, inpatient management, investigator for clinical trials, and supervision of my team and have undergraduate and post graduate teaching responsibilities.

7.30AM

Today my day started by attending research unit at 7.30 AM to supervise infusion for investigative medicinal treatment for a participating patient before I came to the office at 9AM.

9.00AM

I am on call for metabolic emergencies for next 24 hrs. I had meeting to discuss management plan for inpatients at Salford Royal Hospital as well in other hospitals with team before I went to the ward to review inpatients along with specialist nurse, dietician and advanced care practitioner. Virtual ward round was done for the inpatient in other hospitals by contacting the local medical teams. Team work is the key to successful management of these patients.

Patients do contact us via our dedicated helpline or department emails and queries and this include a wide range of issues i.e. side effects with medications, PKU pregnant ladies feeling sick and not being able to keep their supplements down, drug delivery issues etc. As a part of on call I supported the staff to help with these or dealt with them directly where appropriate.

Reviewed PKU levels and management plan for PKU patients who are pregnant or preconception with the metabolic dietician and advanced care practitioner.

Patients who attended clinic in last few weeks had their investigations available to be reported and this was the next job I did so that the patients and their general practitioners receive this in a timely manner.

1.00PM

My clinic started at 1PM with clinic that had a variety of metabolic patients including PKU patients. The clinics are well attended and it important that patients keep their appointments to use our resources appropriately. Patients are strongly advised to let the team know in a timely manner if they can’t attend so that other patients can be given the opportunity to come to the clinic.

5.30PM

After finishing clinic at 5.30 PM I attended clinical trial unit until 7PM to monitor and reviewed the research patient prior to discharge after receiving investigative medicinal product.

It is additional work to supervise and support clinical trials as European, National and site investigator for metabolic conditions but it is rewarding and does make way for better care and treatments in the future.

7.00PM

After leaving the hospital I continued to be available via phone for any metabolic emergencies.

We would like to thank Reena for sharing her ‘Day in a Life’ with us. If you have any questions, please email us: ukinfo@cambrooke.com.