Last summer, I wrote a blog post titled BREAKING NEWS: Scholar Discovers Human Connection. At the time, I thought I had reached the reflective peak of my Laidlaw journey. I survived Covidence, found an unexpected love for research, made incredible friends and discovered the joy of deleting 50 papers from a review.
A year later, I think Laidlaw had a few more lessons waiting for me.
University itself has already been one enormous journey of figuring out who I am when everything familiar is taken away. Laidlaw somehow accelerated that process. Over the last two years, I have repeatedly found myself doing things that a previous version of me would have found intimidating.
The biggest thing I have learnt is probably that the limits I place on myself are often much lower than my actual ones.
And apparently, Laidlaw’s preferred method of teaching me this was to send me from a laptop in St Andrews to a hospital in Tanzania.
From Covidence to Mbeya
My two Laidlaw summers could not have been more different.
Summer One was structured. Very structured.
I chose my research question, developed a methodology and spent six weeks conducting a systematic scoping review exploring strategies to reduce vaccine hesitancy and their impact on public trust and attitudes towards vaccination. My project involved database searches, screening, extracting information and eventually bringing everything together into thematic findings.
There were challenges, obviously. Hundreds of papers do not screen themselves, unfortunately. But I always knew what came next.
Summer Two was almost the complete opposite.
Before travelling to Tanzania, I had SMART goals, plans and ideas about exactly what our Leadership in Action project might look like.
Then I arrived in Mbeya. Very quickly, I realised that even well-organised plans can change when faced with reality.
There were language barriers. Plans changed. Communication was not always as straightforward as I was used to. At times, the only things I knew for certain were that I had a plane ticket and somewhere to stay.
I’ve always considered myself a Type B person, but even I found that level of uncertainty intimidating. Instead of trying to hold onto the version of the project I had planned beforehand, it became about learning to work with what was in front of me. That ended up being one of the most valuable parts of the experience.
My pookies who I got to experience Mbeya with: @Ishani Badala and @Orla Rostom.
Apparently, My Research Followed Me to Tanzania
One thing I never expected was for my two summers to overlap academically.
My research focused on how people access and trust medical information, particularly around vaccine hesitancy and misinformation. The potential impact I identified was improving public-health communication to better reach and inform diverse communities.
A year later, some of those ideas stopped being sentences in journal articles.
In Mbeya, I saw this play out in front of me. Patients would sometimes arrive at stages of illness that I was not used to seeing in the UK, where greater access to health education and earlier intervention can make this less common. It made me understand much more clearly how health literacy and access to information can shape when someone seeks care, turning something, I had previously only researched into something I could actually see in practice.
There were presentations, discussions, public-health work and the development of educational materials. There was also the opportunity to learn alongside Tanzanian medical students and healthcare professionals.
I loved that.
I had gone into my second summer thinking research and Leadership in Action were two separate halves of the scholarship. Instead, I realised how much one had prepared me to understand the other.
The 3Cs — Except Now They Actually Mean Something to Me
Throughout Laidlaw, we talk about the 3Cs: Change Maker Values, Character and Capacities.
Two years ago, I could probably have explained what each one meant.
Now I think I understand them.
My capacities developed differently across each summer. Research taught me independence and critical thinking, while Tanzania taught me how to communicate across barriers, adapt when plans changed and ask for help when I needed it.
The Oxford Character Project also changed how I think about leadership. I used to associate leadership more with having answers; now I think ethical leadership often starts with recognising when you do not. In Tanzania, that meant listening to healthcare professionals who understood their communities far better than I did and being willing to change plans that, despite good intentions, were not always appropriate.
That is also where the Change Maker Values became more meaningful to me. Ambition does not mean believing you can fix everything, and determination does not always mean sticking rigidly to a plan. Sometimes it means having the humility to adapt.
My idea of a global mindset has changed in the same way. Being a global citizen means challenging your own assumptions and recognising that your way of doing something is only one perspective. That is something I want to carry into medicine.
One of those days I wish I could do all over again.
And, Once Again, It Was the People
Unfortunately for anyone hoping for a dramatic plot twist from last year’s blog, I have reached exactly the same conclusion.
Laidlaw is the people.
Last summer, I lived with a group of girls, including Ishani and Orla, although our research projects looked completely different. They had lab-based projects while mine involved far more independent literature work, so our days often separated before coming back together for our evening debriefs.
This summer, we lived almost every part of the experience together.
We ate together. We did laundry together. We travelled together. We had the good days together and the days where someone just needed to complain for ten minutes while everyone else listened. We ended up saying hello to each other’s parents whenever someone was on FaceTime.
At some point, “friends” stopped feeling like the right word.
They’re my sisters.
And I think there is something quite special about being placed into an experience with people and discovering that the experience itself changes the relationship. There are memories that will never require explaining because the people beside you were there too.
Last summer taught me that I can work independently, which was important because I had always thought of myself as someone who naturally preferred teamwork.
This summer reminded me why I love teamwork so much. Having people beside you who genuinely understand the experience makes such a difference.
A little bit of everything that made Mbeya, Mbeya.
That sense of community continued outside the summers too.
Some of my favourite Laidlaw memories are not necessarily the official ones. They are running into another Scholar in Tesco, seeing someone in the Union, movie nights, pub evenings and randomly catching up during the academic year.
It has been especially lovely watching the next cohort begin the same journey. My academic kid and several people I know have joined the programme, and I like to think I may have contributed at least a little to convincing some of them to apply.
Passing the enthusiasm forward feels like another part of being a Scholar.
So, What Now?
Two summers ago, volunteering somewhere like Tanzania belonged firmly in the category of “things I really want to do one day.”
The desire was there.
The confidence was not.
Laidlaw gave me the opportunity to turn “one day” into something I have actually done.
More importantly, it showed me that I want to keep doing it.
I discovered that I enjoy research far more than I expected. Apparently, I did not leave essay writing behind at GCSE after all. I discovered that I enjoy working with children after being fairly convinced that I wouldn’t. I discovered that I can function independently, that I can adapt when a carefully planned project stops being carefully planned, and that unfamiliarity is not a reason to say no to something.
I also came away more excited about medicine.
Working alongside healthcare professionals in Tanzania and seeing healthcare delivered in a completely different environment reminded me why I wanted this career in the first place. It made the world of medicine feel much larger than the version I knew from university.
When I started Laidlaw, I thought the programme would give me research experience and leadership training.
It did.
But it also gave me friendships I hope will last far beyond university, an academic side of myself I had not properly explored, experiences that once seemed far outside my comfort zone and a much clearer idea of the type of doctor, and person, I hope to become.
So, to the Laidlaw Foundation, the University of St Andrews Laidlaw team, everyone who has supported us throughout the programme, and especially Lord Laidlaw for making this investment in our leadership development possible: thank you.
Last year, I ended my reflection convinced that the best part of research had been everything around the research.
A year later, I think I can finally update that conclusion.
The best part of Laidlaw was everything I planned for and almost everything I didn’t.