Students say thank you with a fundraising challenge

A team of final-year medical students will swap ward rounds for a rowing machine as they try to raise £5,000 for the hospital where they completed a lot of their training.

The group – Joe Sumner, 23; Muhammad Bojang, 25; Rilind Berisha, 26; Ali Yalcinkaya, 26; Halima Ali, 24; Jake Charlson, 26; Josh Lopez, 31; Katie Dunn, 23; Maisha Islam, 27; Rahul Goel, 24; Risako Sakatsume, 25; and Zohra Noori, 24 – are students at King's College London and have spent much of the past year on placement at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.

They have been working on the medical wards, Cambridge J, Cambridge K, Cambridge L, Cambridge M1 and M2, and are raising money for East Kent Hospitals Charity to support those wards.

Joe said: “We thought that since the staff and patients on these wards have done so much to help us get to the stage we're at now, it would be nice to try and do something to help them in return.

“We will be attempting to row a combined distance of 130km in 24 hours – the distance as the crow flies from Ashford to Cambridge.

“People will be doing different amounts, and as a result it should be challenging for everyone.”

The challenge starts at noon on Tuesday, 19 March, and ends at noon on Wednesday, 20 March. You can add to their sponsorship at https://www.justgiving.com/page/medicalstudent-1709291700090rowingchallenge