photo: Andrew Crowley
We're not entirely sure how, but Dr. Chandrima Biswas manages to combine steely intellectual rigour with extraordinary glamour. In this month's Q & A session, we find out more about the foundations of one of London's top obstetricians.
What is your favourite childhood memory?
My two best childhood memories revolve around family and friends, as do so many of my best memories.
My first is Christmas (which for us was a cultural, not religious festival). We always had a small tree. This particular Christmas our house was crammed to the rafters with about twenty families… some of my young uncles chopped down an enormous evergreen in our garden. It reached the ceiling in our house and was so much fun to decorate. Bliss.
My second was at boarding school – midnight feasts were a no no with matron on guard, so we resorted to 4 am feasts instead. We would free our crushed crisps hidden inside our wardrobe cubicles and stay up until sunrise. If it was light, we’d sneak out onto the courts and play tennis at dawn. More bliss.
What was your first ambition?
I wanted to be a photographer. From the off, I loved taking photos. In my fantasy I was roaming the world doing anthropological reportage.
What made you decide on medicine and why obstetrics and gynaecology?
Being a photographer isn’t always entirely acceptable as a profession in Asian families! Medicine beckoned and at one point during my specialist training I delivered 15 babies in a month – incredibly inspirational, and I decided obstetrics and gynaecology was for me. Seeing the process of childbirth amazed me twenty five years ago and continues to amaze me now. Nature is extraordinary. I was also lucky to have wonderful junior doctors just above me that I shadowed at St Thomas’ which cemented my choice.
What is the best thing about your work?
Each birth feels unique and wonderful, and the experience is fresh each time. I love the connection I have with my female patients. It feels easy to be empathetic to their concerns. It is an incredibly uplifting profession.
What are your thoughts on women in medicine?
I qualified in 1992 and at the time the gender split in intake to medical school was 50/50, it’s now more like 70% female/ 30% male. But at the time many more women went towards General Practice – it was regarded as somewhere you could more easily balance motherhood with career. As a junior doctor in a specialism there was no way going part time was acceptable. But by the time I had my daughter 18 years ago I had an incredibly supportive tutor which made all the difference.
Nowadays, younger doctors have a whole range of great role models. I would say that 70% of women specialists go part time when they have children. Full time is now 48 hours a week – this has changed from 56 hours a week part time when I had my children.
What next in your medical career?
At the moment I work for the Health Care Safety Investigation Branch – Clinical Advisor to Maternity Investigations – which advises on strategies and investigations. It’s an independent body reporting directly to Health Secretary Matt Hancock. Its stated ambition is to halve the number of stillbirths and neurologically - (brain-) damaged babies by 2025.
HSIB are investigating the care of all 1000+ babies nationally who are stillborn or brain-damaged during birth. The idea is to learn from these cases, make national recommendations , and hopefully prevent the same mistakes. Whilst my role is to advise on the investigations, strategy etc, the organisation is much bigger than me!!
In some ways, I would love not being on call every three weeks. It starts Monday morning at 8am, carrying onto a night shift at home, another day shift with ward rounds followed by another on call night shift then back on all day the next day. As I get older it gets harder, especially if it’s been a busy night and with operations during the days. On the one hand, it’s tempting to give it up, but on the other if you want to do your very best in reducing the rate of damaged babies, you have to keep your hand in. So there’s no question but that I will carry on – after all, this is what I love. What we are really excited about is our investigations unit working together with other bodies – we think this will make a real difference in the next year or two for all babies.
What is the best gift you’ve been given and why?
It’s the gift of my children. My family and friends are of the utmost importance. During my bout with cancer and a difficult divorce my friends were a duvet around me that kept me going. It’s an incredible bond.
Where next on your travel bucket list?
Cuba – Costa Rica – and Iceland for the Northern Lights
Who is your dream dinner date and why?
Mozart – I love music and did grade 8 violin at school. He was a mad genius, a maverick, and didn’t care about convention while creating amazing music.
What are you most proud of?
My children! Followed very closely by my parents. They scrimped and saved to send me to Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Westminster and gave me the gift of education which allowed me to pursue my career.
What do you never leave home without?
My phone – it keeps me connected to my friends and family.
What is your signature style piece?
I have always loved fashion, and when I was a young student I used to make most of my own clothes so I could wear what I wanted. The one defining feature has to be a love of strong colour and pattern.
What was the last thing you bought and loved?
A 1940s French lampshade with two inbuilt tables. It sits next to a Hungarian 1930s medicine cabinet.
What’s the best piece of advice you were ever given?
Medically – a mentor I once had said if the first time you know about a job that you want is when it’s advertised, then it’s already too late. You have to network so that people are already thinking of you when a job comes up, and you are already prepared with the skills necessary to go for it.
Personally – children grow up so quickly. Maximise your time with them. I deliberately slowed down my career at one point to be able to do this.
What and where next?
I like to give myself a proper challenge every year. And to be honest, each day and month as it comes I try to challenge myself. In 2012 I learned to dive. 2014 was the year I climbed Kilimanjaro. This year I plan to backpack around India for two weeks with my partner. It’s something we both did (separately) as teens, though this time around we may upgrade our accommodation a bit!
If your 20-year-old self could see you now, what would she think?
I’d like to think that my twenty year old self would say, ‘that’s a woman I want to be in 30 years' time.’ I really feel that now, after a cycle of navigating divorce and cancer, I have become the person I want to be. I’m much more confident, ready to speak out, be funny…I think she’d like what she saw.
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