Sarah Pickworth studied medicine at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, London, gaining a first class intercalated degree in nutrition from Queen Mary’s College, and completing post-graduate training in general practice in Oxfordshire. She studied at the London school of Hygiene and Tropical medicine gaining a diploma in hygiene and tropical medicine in 1999, and a Masters in Public Health in Developing Countries in 2005.

Her first mission abroad was with MDM in Macedonia and Kosovo in 1999 and, at that time, was the first volunteer from the Médecins du Monde UK office (now Doctors of the World). She has since worked with a number of organisations abroad including ACF, AMI, Oxfam and WHO in countries which include Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Honduras and Myanmar.

In the UK she has worked in hospital paediatrics in London and Oxford, and as a General Practitioner in Sussex, Oxfordshire and the Scottish Highlands.

Sarah returned from working in Myanmar in June 2009, where she worked as volunteer medical co-ordinator for MDM in their post-Nargis emergency response.