Miss England 2019 hangs up her crown, returns to work as doctor amid covid-19 pandemic

Miss England 2019 is hanging up her crown (for now) to focus on the coronavirus pandemic.

Bhasha Mukherjee, 24, was a junior doctor specializing in respiratory medicine before competing in the Miss World pageant on behalf of England in December 2019. Although continuing her work at the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, Lincolnshire, after taking home her Miss England sash, she had planned to put her medical career on hold to travel the world for various humanitarian efforts after her latest competition. However, four weeks into her ambassadorship in India on behalf of Coventry Mercia Lions Club, where she donated stationery to schools and gave money to a home for abandoned girls, news broke that COVID-19 was spreading rapidly back home in the United Kingdom.

After Mukherjee started receiving messages from former colleagues about the worsening situation at her hospital, she knew she had to pick up where she had left off. She told CNN she felt she needed to be more hands-on during the pandemic. “When you are doing all this humanitarian work abroad, you’re still expected to put the crown on, get ready…look pretty,” she said. “I wanted to come back home. I wanted to come and go straight to work.”

“I felt a sense of, This is what I’d got this degree for and what better time to be part of this particular sector than now?” she said. “It was incredible the way the whole world was celebrating all key workers, and I wanted to be one of those, and I knew I could help.”