Blogs

SAS Week 2023 - Susanne Reinoehl

I studied medicine at the Free University of Berlin among student protests in a busy politically charged environment. Still as a student, I got involved in the then cutting-edge research into CPAP treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome and spent time in Finland and Australia as part of the research team connected to Colin Sullivan.

I spent over 5 months in Soweto in the surgical department before I graduated in 2001. ‘Pre-registration house officer‘ jobs brought me to Dumfries and Carlisle where I met my future husband. We very much liked the North, so settled in Newcastle. After my MRCS (Ed) in 2005, I started working for the first time in Northumbria. We spent 2006-2007 in rural Ethiopia in a Mission Hospital.

I took a sabbatical to obtain the Certificate of Education degree from Newcastle Uni, to look after our first son and overseas family who stayed for cancer treatment. I went back working with Northumbria in 2009, doing mainly on-calls and out-of-hours work before building up one of the very first surgical assessment units in the country in 2011. This is where my career as SAS doctor started off!

I have since fought for and found my niche places in this trust, establishing the temporal artery biopsy service together with the rheumatologists, leading and developing the lumps and bumps service into its current expanding shape, and working as independent endoscopist and endoscopist trainer.

Last year I stepped back from a decade of involvement in the undergraduate teaching of medical students, although I am still an academic mentor. Instead, I am currently concentrating more on work for the SAS group of doctors, representing us in the Local Negotiation Committee and in a much wider scope as deputy chair of the Northern Region SAS Committee.