Meet Malik Ramadhan, OBE
Malik Ramadhan, from East Dulwich, joined The Royal London in 1995 and has been a consultant at the hospital since 2008.
Malik didn’t always want to be a doctor; as a young boy, he wanted to be a train driver. But his mother encouraged him to become a doctor, which was something she'd always dreamed about. Malik trained at Barts and the London and specialised in paediatric and adult emergency care, a decision he has never regretted.
“I particularly love working nights as it's when the emergency department works at its best. The sickest people come through the door and the team is solely there for patients. The hospital works incredibly well as that is our main focus. I also get to spend quality time with our junior doctors and nurses which is not always the reality of day shifts when other things become distractions.”
A night that Malik won’t forget is 3 June 2017. He had just finished a shift in A&E and was cycling to meet a friend in London Bridge. A number of police cars screamed past him and he knew something wasn’t right. He turned around and cycled back to The Royal London.
“Everyone rallies around in a crisis; it’s what we’re all built for. We had doctors, nurses and allied health professionals join us so that we could open up extra operating theatres. We normally only have one open on a Saturday night but with everyone coming in to help, we could open up six extra theatres to care for the 12 patients that came in as a result of the terrorist attack.”
Malik has an understated, calm and reassuring manner. It was these qualities that ensured the smooth running of A&E that night. “I was the resuscitation room commander. I ensured the injured patients had their scans and surgery at the right time and always had the right number of people looking after them.
“We performed emergency surgery on six patients lasting between an hour and three to four hours. Two people had been stabbed in the neck and another had been stabbed in the torso. The other three had blunt force injuries, including pelvic fractures, limb fractures and head injuries. We had one patient who had been shot.
“The sort of injuries that we saw are not uncommon at The Royal London, but we don’t normally have so many patients coming in at once.
“The last terrorist attack we dealt with was the 7/7 bombings in 2005. Many of the team who worked then still work here now. We learned a lot from 2005 which changed how we now prepare for these sorts of incidents and helped us with not only the London Bridge attacks but the Finsbury Park attack just two weeks later.”
It is this skilled teamwork that led to The Royal London’s emergency department winning emergency medicine team of the year in December’s Royal College of Medicine awards ceremony.
“I am incredibly humbled to receive an Order of the British Empire on behalf of everyone who does their utmost every day in a busy hospital.”
And what did his mother think of his award? “She was very proud and felt her hard work had paid off!”
Malik was awarded an Officer of the British Empire on 29 December 2018.