Dr Giovanna Kossakowska

Qualifications

BSc, MBBS, FRCA

Term of office on Council

2022-2024

Hospital

Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Manchester

Biography

Dr Giovanna Kossakowska is a senior trainee in the North West School of Anaesthesia.  A Polish national who graduated high school in Portugal, she completed her undergraduate studies at King’s College London.  Pursuing anaesthesia as a career first sparked in her mind during her elective abroad, and firmly took hold after a lively night shift during her FY1 year.

After finishing medical school, Giovanna moved steadily northwards, completing both her Foundation and Core Anaesthetic training in the East of England.  During a trip north for an FRCA revision course, she fell in love with Manchester’s industrial architecture and decided to pursue registrar training in the North West.  She has just started her 12 month SIA in Paediatric Anaesthesia.

Giovanna is open about the burnout she experienced whilst working towards achieving the Primary, and is thankful for the breathing room and experience extended to her while working as a Trust Grade anaesthetist at Peterborough City Hospital before her application to ST3 training.  Moreover, she is fiercely proud of her immigrant status.  Trainee welfare and retention, especially amongst those who are on a more circuitous route through training, are particular interests of hers, though she is equally keen to advocate for those born and/or trained outside of the UK. 

If she hadn’t gone into anaesthesia and had more hours to the day, Giovanna would be an oenologist, likely operating out of the south of Spain, and run a hybrid vineyard-ranch teeming with Iberian horses and rescued greyhounds.

Register of Interests

Ordinary member of the Association of Anaesthetists, British Medical Association and Difficult Airway Society

Instructor in the RCS CCrISP Course