The fairy tale of a girl and her road from her undergraduate life through the world most famous department of Fetal Medicine to the most modern medical center in Bulgaria and to be a lecturer next to the biggest names in the field. Passionately told in first person.

 

Hello!

 

I am Dr. Ivelina Dimitrova, and as you probably have guessed, I am about to tell you a story about my not-too-long by far professional life, nevertheless, full of interesting twists and turns.

 

For me everything started in the not-so-distant year of 2016. The day is January 14 and we are graduating from medical school. I'm passionately telling people I'm going to the UK in a week or two and I'm planning to do my specialty training there - "Obstetrics and gynecology, of course, I want to become an oncogynecologist!". People nod and smile at me, most of them not truly believing I will actually leave, while others just wonder at my choice of professional development. I, of course, manage to leave shortly after! But not to do an obstetrics and gynecology training. This path turns out to be a little more inaccessible to a newly graduated student from Bulgaria. Achievable, of course, but at the cost of a short-term distancing from the desired specialty.

 

Like any other young person, I have a certain amount of impatience and thus decide it is unacceptable the path to my dreams to require a few steps out of the way. And as it often happens in life - when a door closes, another one opens... and just how much this recently new door gave me...

 

Professor Kypros Nicolaides is one of the most renown names in the field of fetal medicine. A pioneer in the development of a number of algorithms and prenatal screening methods, his hundreds of research studies have contributed immensely to the rapid development and improvement of the prenatal care for pregnant women and their unborn children over the past 30 years. His philosophy aims to continuously search for new tests and improve the old ones for early detection of high-risk pregnancies and their prevention and follow-up.

 

I decide to apply for a research fellow at his department without any particular expectations, just because a friedn recommended it.  I'm convinced it's not for me and I don't even have the alightest idea what fetal medicine is. And that's where the story goes interesting!

 

A few days later and an unexpected email informing me I will get the unique opportunity to become part of the professor's team only two months after that January day I received my diploma... This means I will be able to touch a genius of

medicine, to a man making history in real time, to a name that will forever be in every fetal medicine textbook!

 

What a twist. Oncogynecology - bye!

 

19.04.2016. First working day.

 

It's not easy. No way. People generally tend to underestimate me at first. This team is no different. Most of the people I have to work with are mainly obstetrics and gynecology graduates, some of them even have many years of experience in their countries. The general sentiment is that I have no place among them, and since I lack a major specialization, I cannot acquire anything meaningful in the way of knowledge and skills. I'm on the verge of believing them. But before that happens, I am still given the opportunity to work with people who trust me. People who believe that I have talent and with the right training I can achieve a lot. People who patiently hold my hand while I learn the basics of ultrasound, how to take a "good fetal picture" and which abnormality means what. People who sit with me after work to explain to me the meaning of all those numbers on the biochemical screening and how I should counsel pregnant women. People who show me day after day not only how to "look" but also see, how to communicate with the patient, but also how to understand the person. How to be better at my job for my own sake, but mostly for the sake of all those women who will trust me for a review. And when someone believes in you, you start to believe in yourself. And progress follows quickly, even a little imperceptibly I would say. And in the blink of an eye, you're already certified in first trimester fetal morphology in three months, and in three more in second and third trimesters, and it's your turn to train someone new and pass the knowledge on.

 

This was my thing, I had discovered it! But like all good things, it also has an end.

 

The regular research assistant contract at King's College Hospital London and Prof. Nicolaides' team lasts for two years. Okay, but I don't feel like going. I manage to squeeze in another 4-5 months, in which I work mostly at the professor's private center. Months where I have the opportunity to be in even closer contact with the magic he creates. Months in which I learn a lot more from him, but above all how to work with love and dedication. Months in which I have to give an answer to the question "where to now?". I think "I'm staying, of course, and I'm looking for my place somewhere here on the island". It doesn't quite work out that way, though. Things somehow, contrary to my imagination