Doctor going places as Royal Free travel clinic is opened

Ever since she first began practising travel medicine back in 1995, Dr Jane Zuckerman has been determined to make a difference to the lives of the people who sought her advice.

So the official opening of a new travel health and immunisation clinic within the confines of the Royal Free Hospital is another proud achievement in an already illustrious career.

"Everyone calls this travel clinic 'my baby' and I suppose it is," she says. "It's a subject I am very passionate about.

"I wanted there to be a specialist travel clinic, a reference point for north-west London, for people, GPs, other medical colleagues.

"Anyone can come to the clinic - I want people to know what we do here.

"We do this six days a week, seeing 350 a month. It's not just about me. It's my team of specialist nurses. It puts us in a very unique place in London, the south-east and I would even say in the country.

"I would be surprised if you would expertise like this elsewhere in a consultant-led hospital based clinic."

While the travel clinic opened its doors back in February, an official opening was held this week on Thursday, with travel expert Simon Calder cutting the ribbon alongside Dr Zuckerman and her team.

Dr Zuckerman explains the many reasons why someone might decide to attend a travel clinic - and how as more and more people fly abroad, often to tropical climates, the need for specialist centres such as hers have grown.

"We need to make sure we keep people who travel healthy," she says. "For their own travel needs they need to be healthy, but there are also many different countries that people go to explore now.

"For instance, if you go to the Amazon basin, there is a risk you can introduce disease into that population, a community who may not have visited the outside word before.

"It's about protecting yourself, and also the host community."

The author of more 200 medical research papers during her career, Dr Zuckerman speaks proudly of her success stories in travel medicine.

There was the young man forced to miss out on the gap-year travel adventure that his friends embarked on because he was suffering from Crohn's disease.

Dejected he went to study a law degree in Birmingham. On graduating his parents told the clever student that his renewed dream of a gap year would still not be possible because of his illness.

Working together with an expert in Crohn's at the Royal Free, Dr Zuckerman established a medical plan that would enable the young man to travel.

And travel he did - from central America, to south-east Asia, New Zealand and ending up at base camp Mount Everest.

"He came to see me afterwards, now with a beard, but I recognised him," says Dr Zuckerman."He said 'You changed my life - my life is completely enriched'. I was very pleased."

Dr Zuckerman is particularly proud of her clinic's location inside the Royal Free, in Hampstead, north-west London - a hospital where both she and her father, Professor Arie Zuckerman, forged their medical careers.

She also stresses that while the travel clinic is fee paying - a shining example of the Royal Free's Private Patients initiative - all income raised goes back into the local NHS Foundation Trust.

"I could have set up a private practice - there are a multitude of private hospitals," she explains.

"But my father trained at the Royal Free, and I trained here - I was given an opportunity to support the NHS. Not just financially - where we are supporting the NHS in very difficult times. Also there a vaccines not available on the NHS even at General Practices. Meningitis B, a very emotive subject. There are some tragic stories. You can now vaccinate against it but it's a very costly vaccine and the NHS cannot always afford to vaccinate everyone. You can come here and pay for the Meningitis B vaccine - and that money you pay for your child to be vaccinated will go back into the NHS."

Dr Zuckerman is also proud of her Jewish roots. Educated at Henrietta Barnett School in Hampstead Garden Suburb, she was brought up in a traditionally, but not religious Jewish home.

Her father was born in Jerusalem, before moving to Tel Aviv to live.

She takes regular holidays in Israel - a country she says she would encourage anyone, regardless of religion, to visit.

"I'm very well known in the Jewish community," she says. "The Zuckerman family are very well known in medicine.
"I have always wanted to make a difference - if that desire is part of the Jewish community then that's an added bonus. It is an important influence in my life.

"But my next goal, if I'm not already busy enough on a Monday night, is to carry on learning Hebrew for two hours at JW3!"

The Royal Free's Travel Health and Immunisation Clinic is open Monday-Saturday. To make an appointment, call 020 7317 7751 or email rf.privateenquiries@nhs.net