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Miss England 2019 trades her crown for scrubs, returns to medicine to battle pandemic

Bhasha Mukherjee will resume her role as a junior doctor at Pilgrims Hospital in Boston, eastern England.

Miss England 2019 trades her crown for scrubs, returns to medicine to battle pandemic
Image Source: Bhasha Mukherjee / GoFundMe

Bhasha Mukherjee, 24, hung up her white coat and stethoscope when she was crowned Miss England in 2019. However, with the Coronavirus outbreak getting worse in the United Kingdom, she wanted to lend a helping hand. Therefore, she took off her crown and has returned to practice medicine back home, CNN reports. Though Mukherjee was abroad working with a charity, she flew back as soon as she could and is currently in self-isolation until she can begin working in a hospital again. She hopes she will be able to do her bit to "flatten the curve" and serve her country.

 



 

The beauty queen originally planned to focus on humanitarian work until August this year. Ever since she won the Miss England title last year, several charities have invited her to become an ambassador and complete various outreach projects across the world. She explained in an interview with CNN, "I was invited to Africa, to Turkey, then to India, Pakistan and several other Asian countries to be an ambassador for various charity work." At the beginning of March, Mukherjee had been in India for about a month on behalf of the Coventry Mercia Lions Club. This club is a "development and community charity," for which she is now an ambassador. Together, the 24-year-old and the charity visited schools to distribute donated stationery and contribute funds to a home for abandoned girls.

 



 

While she was abroad, she saw the COVID-19 outbreak in the United Kingdom get worse. Her friends and former colleagues at her old hospital, the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, eastern England, had sent her messages about how difficult the situation was for them. Though she had taken a career break as a junior doctor in December 2019 after competing in the Miss World competition representing England, the beauty queen felt compelled to take action. Despite the fact that she was doing humanitarian work and knew she was helping communities in need, she said it "felt wrong" to not do anything about the outbreak. "When you are doing all this humanitarian work abroad, you're still expected to put the crown on, get ready, look pretty," Mukherjee stated. "I wanted to come back home. I wanted to come and go straight to work."



 

Mukherjee hence reached out to the hospital's management team and let them know that she wanted to return to work. She said, "I felt a sense of this is what I'd got this degree for and what better time to be part of this particular sector than now... It was incredible the way the whole world was celebrating all key workers, and I wanted to be one of those, and I knew I could help." Now a junior doctor once again, she has returned to the UK after collaborating with the British High Commission to identify a flight from India to Frankfurt, then to her final destination, London.



 

At present, she has been placed in self-isolation for two weeks. Following this period, she will return to work as a doctor at the Pilgrim Hospital. While Mukherjee specializes in respiratory medicine, she will likely be shifted to wherever her expertise is needed as doctors are currently assigned shifts on a rotational basis. The beauty queen, who moved to Derby (a city in England) from the Indian city of Kolkata at the young age of nine, affirmed, "There's no better time for me to be Miss England and helping England at a time of need." The UK had reported 48,000 confirmed cases of the novel Coronavirus and almost 5,000 deaths as of Monday. Mukherjee's decision to return to medicine will, without a doubt, help save several lives.

Image Source: Bhasha Mukherjee / GoFundMe

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