"The preceptorship was one of my greatest experiences in hematology" (Dr Adulaziz Sherif, Ethiopia)

Preceptorship at the Hammersmith Hospital in London (UK)

Dr Sherif is an internist and hematologist and serves as Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the Tikur Anbessa Specialized Teaching Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His hospital is the main referral center in the country and the only hospital in Ethiopia that offers treatment to patients with CML. Dr Sherif is one of only two hematologists in Ethiopia. He has been treating CML patients for six years and currently treats around 600 CML patients annually.

Dr Sherif undertook a 3-week clinical preceptorship at the Hammersmith Hospital in London (UK) under the leadership of Professor Jane Apperley in 2013. The Hammersmith Hospital, long famous for its research achievements, is now incorporated into the Academic Health Science Centre, which is part of Imperial College London. The Department of Haematology was established more than 50 years ago and now has a long-standing special interest in CML and other blood diseases.

"My preceptorship at the Hammersmith Hospital was perfectly framed my two important scientific meetings. It started just after the Conference on CML Biology and Therapy in Estoril (Portugal) in September and ended up with a one-week academic session on “Advances in hematology 2013”, an annual event at the Hammersmith Hospital. I can say that I have benefited to the maximum from the interaction with CML experts in London and it was great to be part of the clinical team at the Hammersmith Hospital. I attended follow-up clinics together with the other consultants in hematology. The patient exposure was very practical and I gained a lot from the following interactive discussions with the consultants who were very cooperative. I also had the chance to attend the transplant ward and to experience impatient exposure twice a week, which was very exciting to me. I also enjoyed very much the clinico-pathological sessions in which cases from other hospitals were discussed through teleconferences. The laboratory visits were also very interesting to me because I had the chance to see all the important tests for CML that were routinely done at the Hammersmith Hospital. Moreover I had the chance to gain very valuable experience with other advanced tests like flowcytometry, cytogenetic and other tests for a wide rage of hematological diseases. I also had the chance to make personal links with the consultants at the Hammersmith hospital first of all with Professor Jane Apperley and the late Professor Goldman.

 

Every single part of the preceptorship was beneficial to me but I think I got the most from the CML clinics that I spent together with the other consultants and from the laboratory parts of my stay. Back home in Addis Ababa I have tried to apply the standards of care I have seen at the Hammersmith Hospital also to the patients at my hospital. I am confident that this will make a big difference to the way we treat our patients here. I have gained much experience with next generation TKIs and now feel more confident to advise and treat patients who relapsed after treatment with imatinib. Imatinib resistance is a wide spread problem because imatinib is the most widely used CML agent in Ethiopia so far. My relationship to the consultants at Hammersmith also gives me the opportunity to discuss and consult difficult to treat cases.

Moreover, the laboratory exposure I experienced also helps me to advise on the establishment of improved laboratory facilities. The academic sessions have also sharpened my teaching capacity in transferring knowledge and skills to my medical students as well as hematology fellows who are being trained in our hospital. We have recently launched a fellowship-training program in Hematology. This put me in an ideal position to transfer the experience gained from my preceptorship easily to all my colleagues and future physicians, internists and hematologists.

 

The preceptorship was one of my greatest experiences in hematology and I benefited a lot from all the activities. Thank you very much for giving me this great privilege to attend the preceptorship program that was conducted so smoothly."