Sarwar tells me that occupational medicine is a very varied specialty, which draws on a range of skills particularly problem solving, negotiation, and report writing. Much practice occurs outside the NHS, and the routes into the specialty include both NHS and training outside the NHS. It's one of the few areas of medicine where doctors get to spend 45 minutes or longer talking to a patient, and his career allows him to practice medicine whilst at the same time working with many different non-NHS contexts.
Sarwar Chowdhury has several years experience as an Occupational Health Physician (OHP) and is Medical Director for Medigold Health. He operates as a Senior Lead Occupational Health Physician for a Tertiary NHS trust as part of a wider MDT of Occupational clinicians. He has extensive experience with undertaking complex medical management referrals, pre-placement medicals, health surveillance, blood bourne virus (BBV) monitoring, treating clinician referrals, clinical governance and policy writing.
He has expertise in private Occupational Health for SME/businesses conducting high quality assessments including Management Case Conferences, Complex Management Referrals, Driver Medicals (Group 1 & 2 licences), Rail, Firefighter, Local Authorities, White Collar businesses, Biological Monitoring, Health Surveillance and Ill Health Retirement (range of industries including NHS). He acts as the Medical Review Officer (MRO) for verifying Drug and Alcohol Test and Screening results is involved with clinical governance and auditing of Rail Work as the Duty Rail Doctor covering a wide range of Train Operating companies and supervision/support of dozens of clinicians across the UK.
He practises as an AFOM - Associate of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine and is certified as an Office of Rail and Road Doctor (ORRDOC), FOM Tier 4 HAVS approved, HSE appointed in Asbestos & Ionising Radiation.
He is close to completing a prospective CESR route training (4th Year) for Accredited Specialist status in Occupational Medicine as a Consultant Occupational Health Physician. This involves also completing his MSc in Occupational Medicine at Manchester University and currently holds AdvDipOccMed status after 2 years of the course.
He co-founded and runs the Occupational Health Academy demonstrating entrepreneurship to create a brand and website, leadership in co-running the course, teaching skills with delivering courses in medical education in Occupational Medicine for the Diploma of Occupational Medicine (DOccMed) exam & MFOM Part 1.
Aside from his work, he volunteers as the CESR 'training' Representative for the Society of Occupational Medicine (SOM), guiding and liaising with Occupational Health Physicians seeking to gain MFOM (ad eundem) outside of the traditional CCT route.
You can connect with Sarwar on LinkedIn.
You can find out more about Occupational Medicine on the following resources.
https://occupationalhealthacademy.co.uk/resources; https://www.fom.ac.uk/careers; https://www.som.org.uk/careers; https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/roles-doctors/occupational-medicine; https://medicfootprints.org/occupational-medicine-career-guide/; https://rcpconferences.co.uk/rcp-medicine-careers-week; https://youtu.
