Post by Shivana Modi

From the beautiful Philippines, where I’m currently completing my medical elective, I’m feeling incredibly grateful as I reflect on one of the most transformative and meaningful years of my journey so far. I am so proud to share that after 6 years studying Medicine at UCL, I am officially both a doctor and a published first author in the open access, peer-reviewed BMJ ADC journal. So much hard work, resilience, and determination went into both my medical degree and this publication, and it feels amazing to finally take a moment to celebrate these achievements. The aim of our paper is simple. We are striving to improve NICE epilepsy transition guidance - something that is deeply personal to me after experiencing traumatic seizures throughout my teenage years. Planned, tailored transition from paediatric to adult care for all chronic conditions is absolutely critical for the long-term mental and physical health outcomes of young people. Service evaluations are essential for consistently monitoring transition success, yet this area remains poorly standardised. In our paper, we propose a novel way of defining successful transition in epilepsy care, with the hope of improving how this process is measured and delivered nationally. Ultimately, our end goal is simple: to improve the lives of young people living with epilepsy. I’m incredibly grateful to my amazing team: my supervisors, Dougal Hargreaves and Christina Petropoulos; my favourite statisticians, Manolis Bagkeris and Catalina Suarez-Rivera; and my family and friends, who continuously gave me reasons to keep pushing myself to be better. Please feel free to reshare the publication so we can continue raising awareness and, hopefully, help drive meaningful change in epilepsy transition care for the better💜