UCL GBSH Student of the Week: Malek Issa

Background and Professional Journey

I’m a GPhC-registered pharmacist and independent prescriber with over eight years of experience delivering clinical care and leading service improvement across NHS primary care. I lead quality improvement and service redesign across general practice, focusing on long-term condition management, prescribing safety, and patient pathways. Working with multidisciplinary teams, I implement digital initiatives and safer prescribing practices that strengthen clinical governance and improve patient care. My frontline experience has shown me that many healthcare challenges are rooted not only in clinical practice, but also in how health systems are designed and transformed.

Why I Chose the DBA Health at UCL

I chose the DBA Health at UCL because I wanted to study health system transformation while remaining embedded in clinical practice. UCL’s global reputation for research and innovation, combined with the programme’s focus on leadership, applied research, and health systems, made it the ideal place to develop my ideas. The DBA enables me to bridge academic research with real-world healthcare challenges and develop evidence-based solutions with practical impact.

What the Programme Means to Me

The DBA has broadened the way I think about healthcare. It has encouraged me to look beyond individual services and understand the leadership, policy, and organisational factors that shape health systems. Learning alongside professionals from different sectors and countries has strengthened my ability to approach complex healthcare challenges with a more strategic and evidence-informed perspective.

Goals for the Future

My goal is to translate research into practical digital health solutions that improve patient care and strengthen health systems. Alongside my doctoral research, I am developing an AI- powered, clinician-led platform to support obesity management while exploring an AI- powered triage tool to help people navigate safely to the most appropriate healthcare provider. I hope my research will contribute practical frameworks for the safe and responsible implementation of AI in healthcare, improving access to care, patient safety, and health system performance.