Ulrika Jonsson: 'Here's why kids doctor Shakeel Qureshi should win a Sun WhoCaresWins Award'
I was terrified about what lay ahead but he explained things in supersimple terms and ensured I had a counsellor in the room during our long and difficult conversation.Despite his enormous brain, Shak keeps the language simple and always ensures you understand what he is explaining.
But when we attend appointments we still make a point of catching up with Shak. Apart from his great sense of humanity, humility and personable approach is that he never stops working. He travels the world teaching and lecturing when it would be far easier for him to just do his job and go home. Nominations should be for help you have received in the past 12 months, unless it is for an individual’s hard work over many years.
Heidi, 44, from Bromley, South London, says: “We can’t thank the staff enough. What happened to us was every parent’s worst nightmare, but he was in the very best hands.”Oliver was diagnosed with a bicuspid aortic heart valve, a genetic condition where his aortic valve has two chambers, rather than three.
It was carried out by consultant paediatric cardiologist Professor Shakeel Qureshi, who was this year knighted in the New Year’s Honours for his work across more than three decades. Following surgery, Oliver was placed in an induced coma in the hospital’s High Dependency Paediatric Intensive Care Unit.Heidi says: “The level of care they provided was amazing. They are real life superheroes.”