It was while he was on his paediatric placement as part of his medical degree at Gonville & Caius College that Chris Gilmartin noticed a clamour for cannabidiol which prompted him to consider its interactions with other medication.

Chris (Medicine 2014) says: “So many parents of children with epilepsy were coming in asking for doctors to prescribe this medicine. It was all the rage.

“But, despite the massive media presence, it’s only licensed in very specific forms of epilepsy; it’s not used very often.

“This is such a new medicine and we didn’t really know how it would react with all the other medicines that we use in epilepsy.

“I wondered what the effect is of adding this new drug to the mixture? Is it going to have effects we don’t know about?”

Chris embarked on a literature review with consultants and paediatric nurses, with his paper Interaction of cannabidiol with other antiseizure medications: A narrative review (link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059131120302788) now published in the Seizure journal. His fellow authors were Zoya Dowd (Specialist Paediatric Epilepsy Nurse), Dr Alasdair PJ Parker and Dr Pooja Harijan (Consultant Paediatric Neurologists).

Although not containing the ingredient in cannabis which has the hallucinogenic and psychoactive effects, Chris says more research is needed into cannabidiol and its interactions with other epilepsy medication.

“The paper was adding a word of caution,” he adds.

“We need to keep on studying this drug while introducing it, monitoring for any drug interactions and seeing if the intended effect changes in combination with other medicines. We need to keep on doing research into it.”

Chris, pictured, presented the team’s work at the British Paediatric Neurology Association (BPNA) conference in Belfast in January 2020, just prior to the pandemic, and as an academic poster at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) conference 2020. Chris was awarded the Gowers Medical Student Award from the British branch of International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), alongside the Cambridge University Department of Paediatrics Prize for Critically Appraised Topic.

Like the rest of his cohort, Chris graduated early 12 months ago due to the pandemic. He has since been working at Imperial College Healthcare Trust in London, with rotations on liver surgery and paediatrics, and one on care of the elderly about to commence.

Longer-term Chris hopes to specialise in neurology, while he enjoys research and teaching. He supervises pathology and physiology at Caius, where he was the Boat Club captain in 2019.

Chris says rowing, which he took up in third year, provided stress release and escape from the rigours of a medical degree. Caius are still Head of the River following Chris’ captaincy, with the pandemic having a dramatic effect on sporting activities.

He adds: “Rowing at Caius is great. It’s such a community. It’s a very friendly, lively and enthusiastic group of people. I’d recommend anyone to try it.

“There’s always more to give when studying at university and you have to have a place to relax and turn off. For me, this was church and rowing.”