Surayne Segaran started studying for his medical degree at the International Medical University (IMU) in 1998 and graduated in 2003. He then carried out his postgraduate training in the United Kingdom. Currently, he is now a Specialty Registrar in Urology in the Kent, Surrey & Sussex Deanery in England, and will finish his specialist training in 2016. In addition to this, he will be completing a Master’s degree in Medical Education at Cardiff University this year (2015). “Towards the end of my undergraduate training I decided to make an effort to go abroad for at least part of my training, as I wanted to gain a different perspective on practice and have a broader range of skills and experience. At the time I left, the structure of postgraduate training and certification was not very clear, and it was uncertain what opportunities would be available.”
After completing his medical degree in IMU, Surayne spent a few months as a PBL tutor in IMU, and also volunteered with MERCY Malaysia, spending a couple of months in Bam, Iran assisting with earthquake relief. He also spent some time travelling through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The rest of the time was spent preparing for the PLAB exams (the medical licensing examination for the UK).
“I have always been interested in the surgical specialties, but was unsure of a subspecialty for a long time. I was fortunate enough to work in quite a few different fields, but was attracted to the mix of practice in Urology. We treat a very wide range of patients, both male and female, young and old, and there is a good mix of open surgery as well as minimally invasive surgery. It is also on the cutting edge of surgical technology, and every boy likes his toys – I get to play with robots and lasers almost every day! More importantly, urologists seem to have a more relaxed approach to life than in some other specialties, and it’s generally a friendly and welcoming field.” Surayne spent a year as a house officer in general medicine and surgery, then a further 4½ years as a senior house officer in Emergency Medicine, Critical Care, Urology as well as ENT, Orthopaedic, Upper Gastrointestinal and Colorectal Surgery. He completed his Membership exams (the MRCS) in 2007 and spent a year in clinical research in Urology before entering the specialist training rotation in 2011. “Surgical training is extremely competitive and Urology is a difficult specialty to enter. There were 40 jobs in the entire UK in the year I entered this training. I had to not only work hard clinically but also present and publish research internationally.”
“I am of the opinion that the MBBS IMU degree gave me a good foundation on which to build my career, and is on par with most degrees from British medical schools. I know this as I have worked with and taught medical students from a range of UK universities.”
In the future, Surayne hopes to work as a Consultant Urologist and also play an active role in medical education and postgraduate training after the completion of his specialisation. His hopes for the IMU Alumni would be that as the alumni grows, it will become a vast network of very highly qualified individuals worldwide. He thinks that the links that has been forged in IMU will provide alumni members with many opportunities to collaborate in the future. He would also like to be able to give something back to the University by sharing his experience and knowledge with current IMU students and recent graduates.
