Internship with KPMG by Assad Farooq, Medical Student at Imperial College

I started my elective in Healthcare Management with KPMG with a scholarly apprehension. Scholarly apprehension because I graduated from the Imperial College Business School with an Intercalated BSc in Healthcare Management, but anxious all the while about the unknown. That unknown lies at the heart of management consulting. The unknown represents unprecedented contingencies, strict performance targets and sometimes unchartered territories. These factors force the consulting mind to think about creative solutions, exercise disciplined project management and to collaborate with colleagues to leverage each others expertise. This was a challenge and yet an attraction all the while. And, this was the essence of consulting for me.



I traded my stethoscope for a suit and I was immediately made to feel a valued and important part of my team. I attended meetings with supervisors and immediate colleagues who all embraced my learning needs and provided a clear direction about my role and responsibilities in each project. I was given the privilege to work on the ground as well as being invited to attend senior meetings concerning overall strategy. This gave me a 360 degree perspective about project management and helped me to understand the extent of collaboration required to provide the optimum solution to clients. I was involved in three projects ranging from operations management to GP commissioning and risk management.



KPMG is an institution that prides itself on their renowned training schemes. As a medical student intern you are monitored closely and provided with constant support. I was kindly paired with two colleagues who were my mentors and provided me with constant advice. This helped me in both an academic sense and in understanding the wider corporate culture. I developed a close relationship with the mentors I had the privilege of meeting and will contact them well into the future for advice in my future career! This was complemented by a number of internal courses that I completed through the KPMG Business School. These provided me with a sound foundation about the important skills and theory before I embarked on my projects.



Doctors are being encouraged to develop refreshing and bold service-level strategies by taking the helms of health care management and embracing clinical leadership.



Medical students rarely get the opportunity to embark on such ambitious internships. This opportunity has given me a fresh outlook on the challenges we face as future clinicians and got my mind overflowing with innovative solutions to many of the problems currently faced by the NHS. It was an honour to work on exciting, demanding and high-level healthcare management projects, and being a student of the most-respected and experienced leaders in these fields.



I would especially like to extend my ceaseless gratitude to Professor Hillary Thomas, Mr. John Howard, Mr. Russ Jewell, Mr. Hugh Neylan and Dr. Helena Posnett for accepting me into there dynamic team and Dr. Harpreet Sood at the Diagnosis Internship Network for making this possible and for his kind supervision throughout.