I came to the UK to work as a doctor in the NHS in 1983 with a dream to find a solution to make access to healthcare free for all, so that I could reduce social inequalities in health. In 1985, I created PAT, the Paediatric Assessment Tool, to train junior doctors to differentiate minor from grave illness and admit patients.

Unfortunately, I stopped validating the tool because I stumbled across Staphylococcus aureus that killed a healthy teenager in 8 hours. Watching him suffer and die made me scared, and the way parents reacted frightened me more.

I stopped chasing a career and started observing how bacteria behave, how children admitted to the ward, intensive care, and neonatal unit get infected.

Because I could ...