Rishi Patel

I am a Public Health Registrar with a background in clinical medicine, and joined the Thames Valley Training Scheme in August 2018. I obtained my medical degree from Bristol University in 2012 and subsequently completed my Foundation Training in Kent and London. I then moved to Australia for two years and worked primarily as an Emergency Medicine Doctor, which was a great experience of working in a different healthcare system. On my return to the UK in 2016 I joined the Diabetes Trials Unit at Oxford University as a Clinical Research Fellow and gained valuable research experience by working as the clinical lead on a large scale multi-national clinical trial run by the Unit (the ‘EXSCEL’ trial), and by contributing to other novel projects which included developing a cardiovascular disease risk prediction tool exclusively for use in people with type 2 diabetes.

In the first year of the training scheme I undertook the MSc in Global Health Science and Epidemiology at Oxford University. I then completed a 4-month placement with the Thames Valley Health Protection Team based at Public Health England, Chilton, and gained experience in the management of single cases of notifiable diseases as well as larger disease outbreaks. During this placement I also led a project working with local stakeholders in Berkshire to design and deliver training aimed at reducing infection risk among the vulnerably housed and people who inject drug (PWID) sub-populations.

I am currently based at Buckinghamshire County Council where I am working on numerous different projects including an evaluation of a novel suicide bereavement support service, producing local population health profiles for the new ‘community boards’ within Buckinghamshire and undertaking a review of deaths related to substance misuse in the county.