Dr. Lisa Sharkey is a Consultant Gastroenterologist from the UK with special expertise in Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplant. Following her graduation with first-class honours from Cambridge Medical School, Dr. Lisa completed all her speciality and subspecialty training in Cambridge and the East of England. Dr. Lisa Sharkey was a Consultant at the renowned Addenbrooke’s Hospital for eight and a half years, where she was the medical lead for the highly successful National Intestinal Transplant programme and part of the Intestinal Rehabilitation team caring for a large number of patients with Intestinal Failure.
Consultant Dr. Lisa Sharkey is a leader in her field. She regularly speaks at international conferences and has published extensively on intestinal failure and rehabilitation.
In October 2023, Dr. Lisa relocated to King’s College Hospital in Dubai. In her new role, she has also been appointed as an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor at Gulf Medical University in the United Arab Emirates.
Thank you so much for your time today, Lisa. It’s really lovely to see you, as always. Could you start by giving us an introduction about yourself?
Certainly, I’m Dr. Lisa Sharkey, a Gastroenterologist from the UK. I moved to Dubai around 18 months ago. Before that, I had been working in the Cambridge University Hospitals in the south of England for a long time. I went to Cambridge for medical school and then stayed for specialist training, and after that as a consultant. So life is very different now.
Why did you decide to specialise in Gastroenterology?
I like the variety in a specialty like gastroenterology. My day-to-day work is very varied and interesting. It’s not just clinics or inpatient work. We also do procedures, and even within endoscopy procedures, we do lots of different things.
There is also a variety in terms of some very acutely sick patients, and then people with chronic conditions that you might look after for many, many years. We help our patients manage chronic conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease through all the big life events, marriage, pregnancy, etc.
There’s also variety in terms of the technology and the way that it’s moving forward, and gastroenterology and endoscopy in particular really embrace innovation and technology. It’s an evolving specialty, which is a nice thing. When I was a junior doctor, I had a trainer who was a brilliant female Gastroenterologist who became a mentor to me. She wanted to encourage more women consultants into the specialty, and she inspired me to choose Gastroenterology. Then, during my specialist training, I had another great mentor who sparked my interest in clinical nutrition and intestinal failure.
So mentorship was really a big part of it.
Yes, we need more female Gastroenterologists; there is a high demand, especially in this region, because of the cultural sensitivities. It’s very difficult to find female gastroenterology consultants. I think the training is very long, isn’t it? What did your training involve?
So after qualifying from Cambridge Medical School in 2004, I went into my internal medicine rotation. I then did my Gastroenterology Specialist Registrar training in Cambridge and the East of England region, where I received excellent mentorship and wide-ranging experience in all aspects of Gastroenterology. Then I started to focus on my subspecialist areas and did some research on Intestinal Failure-associated Liver disease (IFALD) and Fellowships in Intestinal Failure and Intestinal Transplant. I started my first consultant job in Cambridge in 2015, which was in general gastroenterology, but very much focused on those two specialist areas.
Could you tell us a bit more about intestinal failure and how you became interested in this niche area?
Intestinal failure, by definition, is where the function of the intestine is reduced, and so your body’s not able to absorb all the nutrients from your food that you need to sustain you. This may be due to short bowel syndrome, where large parts of the bowel have been surgically removed due to serious disease. So, for example, a patient with Crohn’s disease who has had lots of surgeries over their lifetime and had a lot of their intestine removed. They don’t have enough intestine left to digest and absorb nutrients from their food, so they need parental nutrition through an IV line into a vein. That’s something that is done in most hospitals, but having it done long-term at home is a very specialist thing, which we are able to offer. Patients with Intestinal Failure may also require Rehabilitation or an Intestinal Transplant.
Why do I love working in this subspecialty? Well, for two main reasons. When our intestines are working, we don’t think about it. We digest, we absorb, we evacuate the waste – it just happens. But when it stops working, you realise what a complex process it is, what a big impact it has on life. Things like eating and drinking are such social activities. If someone suddenly isn’t able to do that, their life can completely change. If you can’t meet friends for coffee or family for lunch, it has a major impact on your quality of life. The other good thing about this field is that it’s a truly multidisciplinary arena. As gastroenterologists, we collaborate with surgeons, dieticians, nutrition nurses, and expert pharmacists, and everyone’s working together for the optimum outcome for that patient. Intestinal Failure patients require highly specialised care from an experienced multidisciplinary team.
Have you been able to help many patients here in Dubai and the UAE with intestinal failure problems, and how did those patients find you?
Yes, we have. One of the great things about working at King’s College Hospital is that the executive team there has been really supportive of us starting this new service. It was one of the things I wanted to do when I moved, and they’ve given me the time and resources to get it up and running. So, we have a few patients with intestinal failure on long-term parental nutrition. We have already got expert surgical experience here, and dieticians who are very experienced.
We have a specialist nutrition nurse starting soon, which is a unique thing for Dubai. So that’s going to be really important for the team. The patients have either found us themselves from the website or social media, or they’ve been referred to us from colleagues, including from other hospitals within the UAE, which is really satisfying because you want the word to spread that we’re offering this service, so that we can help these people. I think we probably still have some work to do to get the word out that we are offering this service, but already things have started to move forward. So I’m really proud of that.
Apart from patients with Crohn’s disease, which other patients can you help through the Intestinal Failure service?
So, for patients with intestinal failure, some of them have motility problems of the bowel, which means that the structure’s fine, but the way that it moves and things progress through is altered. That’s a big group of patients. There are also a number of patients who have what we call acute abdominal catastrophes. So, for example, mesenteric infarction, a bit like a heart attack, but affecting your bowel – that’s pretty common. The risk factors for that are things like smoking, hypertension, and diabetes, and all of those things are quite common in this part of the world, unfortunately. So we may see some patients with that as well.
Why did you decide to relocate to Dubai?
That’s a good question. I had been working in and around Cambridge for a long time. So it was partly a feeling a need for a change and a new challenge. But the job that I was doing there was very special to me. So if I was going to change, I knew it had to be for something completely different, not just moving hospitals within the UK.
Then, after we had already been in contact, I was coming to Dubai on holiday, so it was a good opportunity to meet in person. We talked about what life and work would be like here and what to expect. During that trip, I got such a good vibe from the city – the excitement, the innovation, the progressiveness. It felt like everything was positive, everything was moving forward, and things were starting to look very bleak in the UK, you know.
So I came back from that holiday and had a think about it and then said, yeah, I think that feels like the right thing and reached back out to you and the team, and you got everything sorted, and I’m so grateful.
What was it that drew you to King’s College Hospital in particular?
It was partly instinctive I think, coming from the UK system, as King’s College Hospital Dubai has strong links with the King’s College Hospital in London, which made the adjustment easier. Then, when I had the interview with the Chief Medical Officer and the Head of Department, I knew that that instinct was right because it felt familiar and comfortable, and they came across as very encouraging and supportive. So it felt like the right decision to make.
And it absolutely was the right decision for me because that encouragement and support has been there from everybody in the hospital, absolutely everybody. It’s staggering, to be honest. I have received support not only with big things, like setting up an intestinal failure unit, but also with small things while I was settling in as well. All the staff are so helpful and nothing is too much trouble. It’s such a great place to work.
Complex combined surgery for liver and intestinal transplant is also available at KCH Dubai. It is very rewarding to be able to improve the lives of those affected by Intestinal Failure, both those living in the UAE and coming from other countries where such a service is not available.
Have you encountered any challenges at all with your relocation, and how have you overcome these challenges?
I think a lot of other doctors would agree that the insurance system is the biggest challenge. It takes a bit of time to learn how to navigate it. But again, there are people who will support you with that, and you just need to ask for help if you need it. The other – maybe not a challenge – but the other difference is that Dubai is a global city. Almost every nationality in the world is represented here. So in just one day, I can have patients from 15 or 20 countries, with different backgrounds and cultures. So it challenges your interpersonal and communication skills, but I feel that this is beneficial for personal growth. I love that part of my job.
Are you able to get involved with teaching medical students or residents here in Dubai?
Yes, I have an Associate Clinical Professor role with Gulf Medical University. We have medical students coming to King’s College Hospital pretty much constantly. We take observerships and elective students from abroad. Also, we have a really great group of resident doctors doing specialist training, and we’re building our educational programme for them. We have a hospital grand round once a month, we run journal clubs with the resident doctors, and we encourage them to do peer teaching as well. So I think they’re getting a good educational experience with us at King’s, but we’re constantly striving to try and improve and build on it.
You have a strong track record in research in the area of intestinal failure and transplant from the UK. Are there opportunities to get involved in medical research here in Dubai?
I’m still involved with some ongoing intestinal failure and transplant research projects from my old job. We have an upcoming conference in Sweden in September, and I’m heavily involved in that. King’s College Hospital Dubai is very supportive of research, and we have an active research department and committee. A lot of the departments have strong academic track records with published research.
There are also other hospitals in the UAE that are strong in research. I branched out a little bit recently and wrote an article based on my experience here about managing GI side effects of GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic and Mounjaro. We see a lot of that here, so that was a new experience for me, and I was able to translate it into an academic slant, which was good. So, there are lots of opportunities to get involved in research here, too.
Finally, how was your experience working with Allocation Assist?
It was fantastic. You know, there are a lot of different aspects to medical licensing and getting a job here, and some terminology that you’re not familiar with. I felt a little embarrassed about the number of times I had to ask your team, What does this word mean? What does that mean? What is the next step? But they were always there to answer those questions and just made the whole process so smooth. So I can’t recommend you guys highly enough.
Thank you so much, Dr. Lisa.
