My Story - Dr Cynthia Srikesavan (South Asian Heritage Month 2024)

Resilience, hard work, adapting to new environments, and volunteering have been constant themes throughout my personal and professional life. My cultural heritage gives me the strength to face the challenges that I have encountered.

I am Cynthia Srikesavan, and I come from Tamil Nadu, a state in the southern part of India where people speak Tamil, one of the oldest languages in the world. I am deeply passionate about my language and cultural beliefs.

I was born in the historic temple city of Madurai. My great-grandparents were from Thanjavur, another historic temple city and moved to Malaysia for work. They eventually moved back to Tamil Nadu in the early 1950s and settled in Madurai. My grandmother raised her children as a single parent and was one of the first women to be trained as an accountant in Madurai. I was raised by my parents with a strong foundation in both our cultural heritage and Christian beliefs.

Early on, we were imparted the importance of a good education. I received my schooling at a girls’ school that was founded by an American missionary, Katie Wilcox. Strong social values of caring for others and volunteering were a large part of our school life, which I continue to carry to this day. School stoked an interest to enter the health field.

When I was 15 years old, I underwent heart surgery and received physiotherapy during the pre- and post-operative periods. This was my first encounter with physiotherapy, and at that time, I didn’t even imagine that I would become one.

In the early 1990s in Tamil Nadu, admission into a health professional course was based on 12th-grade marks and an entrance exam. I was offered a place in the bachelor’s degree of Physiotherapy programme at the Government College of Physiotherapy, Trichy. Studying here further strengthened my values in volunteering as this was a centre that provided free rehab services to those who could not afford it.

I started my professional career in early 1998 as a Tutor in Physiotherapy with clinical responsibilities. This teaching journey took me to 3 states in India and I also completed an MPT (Neuro), and MSc and MPhil in Psychology before moving to Canada to join my husband in 2010.

It was at this time that I enrolled in the Applied Health Sciences PhD programme at the University of Manitoba. My husband and I had to juggle our studies and be primary care givers for our son, who has learning disabilities and autism.

My PhD thesis was on a computer game-based hand exercise programme for people with rheumatoid arthritis or hand osteoarthritis, and I completed the programme in late 2014. I would say that this was a defining turning point in my career.

In 2015, I was offered a post-doctoral research post at the University of Oxford. It again was a big move with a lot of uncertainty, as it was only a two-year post. My husband and our son also moved with me.

The support I received at work was fantastic and instrumental in us deciding to call the UK as our home now. Professor Sallie Lamb and Dr. Esther Williamson were compassionate leaders who not only supported my professional journey but also allowed me to continue my caring responsibilities in the form of flexible working arrangements. They also regularly extended my position, which allowed me to submit my Indefinite Leave to Remain. When we move from another country to work in the UK, there can be additional struggles, and ours was compounded by the fact that we could not access care for our son due to our visa status. Again, it is my strong cultural values and support from mentors that allowed me to not only go through this period but also thrive professionally.

My post-doctoral work included translating a hand exercise programme for rheumatoid arthritis, which was recommended by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, into NHS practice. I continue to work for Sallie and Esther as a Senior Researcher at both the University of Exeter and University of Oxford. We develop and evaluate free online resources for health professionals to facilitate uptake of interventions in real-world practice. View some of our resources

My volunteer journey mainly revolves around utilising my expertise and experience to give back to the Tamil population. I do this in the form of knowledge dissemination activities which includes cross-cultural adaptation of patient-reported outcome measures into Tamil and other Indian languages. Recently, I received the University of Oxford’s ‘IndOx Grants for Research Travel and Visiting Academics’ to conduct workshops and develop research proposals on patient questionnaires at two universities in India. We have obtained permission from Oxford University Innovation and are working on three musculoskeletal questionnaires in Tamil and Gujarati.

I have enjoyed disseminating evidence-based physiotherapy programmes developed in the UK to the general public of Tamil Nadu by regularly writing articles in a national Tamil newspaper, which has a readership of around 2,728,000. I have received positive feedback from multiple stakeholders, including patients.

I have served as a volunteer translation resource manager at the Cochrane Collaboration. I led a small team that translated around 450 plain language summaries, and produced podcasts in Tamil during 2014-16. Our work was recognised by the University of Oxford’s OxTalent award in 2016. Read more about our podcasts

I am a supporting collaborator of the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro). I led a team in translating PEDro webpages and videos into Tamil. See PEDro in Tamil

Since the COVID pandemic, I have been running a monthly virtual journal club for alumni of my alma mater, focusing on clinical practice and research evidence. We took part in PEDro’s Tackle the Barriers campaign, discussing how we overcame the barrier of the English language.

My family and I are grateful for our life in the UK. My husband, who is also a registered physiotherapist, works and volunteers in the NHS. We hope to continue to contribute to British society, bringing in the best of our South Asian cultural values.