Name: Shashi Ingale
Job Title: Doctor
Age: 28
From: Bombay, India

How long have you been in the UK?
I’ve been living in Stevenage just on the outskirts of London for 9 months now.

How are you finding life in England?
Stevenage is a cool place.  The facilities are good.  It took a while to adjust to the weather here, coming from India which was so hot.  It was amazing when I first arrived and it was snowing!

What were you doing before this?
I was a Doctor for two years in my home town.

Why did you come to London?
My wife, Smita, was given a job opportunity to work as a nurse.  She came out here first for one year and then when I had the chance to join her, I came over.

What did you hope to achieve?
Well there are some restrictions on what foreign doctors can do.  So I’m studying for my British Medical Council Exams at the moment so that I can work as a doctor here.

What does that involve?
First I have to get my English up to the necessary level.  The requirement is for doctors to have an IELTS score of 7.  I already have achieved a 6.5 so I’m hoping by December I will have got a 7.  Then in January I will sit the medical exams.

Is that tough?
Well the medical exams I think will be okay as I’ve been studying hard.  I do around two hours a day English study and another 6 hours on the medical side.  I’m confident I can pass them.  Then I need to try hard to find a medical posting.  I also plan to study a PHD so that perhaps one day I will become a consultant.

What are the best bits of being a doctor?
The public service.  I enjoyed being able to service my community in India.  One day when I am better qualified I would like to go back there.

And the worst?
Probably the working hours.  There is not much privacy, you can perhaps work 24 hours in one shift, which is pretty heavy and you are constantly on call if there is an emergency.

How is the English coming along?
I’ve been taking The Linguist study from home course.  This involves a once a week, tutorial that we do over the internet with Skype.  We are normally 4 people including the tutor and we discuss issues and get to practice our speaking skills which is where I was weakest.  It’s interesting, this week we were talking about the situation in the Middle East and it was good to hear the different perspectives of people from different countries, Germany, Russia, Japan.

And you’ve got a podcast as well haven’t you?
Yes I started my podcast so that I could practice my spoken English.  It’s a bit of fun, I’ve interviewed my friends from The Linguist and even my wife!  Who never normally speaks to me in English.  We normally communicate in Marathi, so that was fun!  You can check out my blog and podcast at this address: http://shashiingale.wordpress.com/

How much do you think your English has improved?
Quite a lot, my English was poor, I couldn’t speak properly or fully understand what people were saying.  Now I feel I can communicate a lot more fluently.

Thank you Shashi for the interview.  We wish you the best of luck for the future.