This month’s ‘Abbey Alumna of the Month’ feels particularly fitting, as Dr Shonnelly Novintan (Class of 2013) is the inspiration behind The Abbey’s Charity of the Year for 2026-27.
Shonnelly is a trustee of CLEFT, with whom we were delighted to announce our partnership this week.
It was the perfect opportunity to catch up with Shonnelly, find out more about her work with CLEFT, and hear about her time at The Abbey.
DR SHONNELLY NOVITAN (CLASS OF 2013) – SURGEON
In October, Shonnelly will commence her role as a plastic surgery registrar on the prestigious Pan-Thames Plastic Surgery programme.
After leaving The Abbey, Shonnelly pursued medicine at Imperial College London, where she was for six years, before her foundation training within Essex. What really affirmed Shonnelly’s career choice for her was her two-year core surgical training, which gave her the confidence to pursue plastics. The journey to plastics was lengthy, but each step of the way was insightful – her post in burns research gave her the opportunity to “look back, reflect and realign” on her journey thus far.
The work is “daunting but exciting” and for the most part, has been a “continuous uphill battle” but one that can be overcome. For Shonnelly, having a strong support network of friends and family, maintaining a life outside of medicine, and the extracurricular pursuits she gained from The Abbey gave her the tools to succeed: “I’ve tried to be more than just a doctor, I’ve kept my extracurricular hobbies that I’ve learnt from The Abbey”.
Shonnelly’s journey into medicine was no easy feat either – as a student, she actively avoided medicine as a career choice for a long time, completing work experience in marketing and pharmacy instead. However, the rigour that enabled success for Shonnelly as a surgeon was present from her teen years and eventually led her to medicine: “I did eventually do some work experience at Stoke Mandeville Hospital with the aim of ruling it [medicine] out, it actually took me by surprise how much I thought I might enjoy it”.
Most of all, it was the human aspect of medicine that ignited Shonnelly’s love for medicine: “I absolutely love meeting new people, talking to people, helping people, and medicine was really the only career that gives you that satisfaction whilst giving you the academic challenge”. Then, when Shonnelly scrubbed in for her first surgery during her first year at university, it was ‘mind-blowing and incredible’, and likewise, her prior trepidations about the path of becoming a surgeon dwindled.
The right career path is not always a seamless one – Shonnelly was faced with “a lot of people telling me that it wasn’t the right career choice for me and that I wouldn’t be able to achieve the goals I had in mind. That was quite a harsh thing to hear as a teenager”.
Struggling to know what to do at various points in school, Shonnelly adopted a mantra that she has kept to this day: “It was difficult to work out what was estimation, what was truth, and whether I should change things. The thing that always grounded me was if someone else could do it, why can’t I?”. Resilience in the face of challenges brought Shonnelly to where she is today. For current Abbey students, she urges them “to pursue that stubbornness, because it happened at every point for me, at school, at sixth form, and if you’ve got a gut feeling that you can do it, keep those blinkers, and trust the process”.
Addressing the all-too-common battle between choosing a creative or STEM pathway, Shonnelly explained how her role enables her to channel her creativity in unexpected ways: “it’s so creative and there was no other speciality like that. When you put in the burns, trauma and paediatric side to it, it’s so broad. I know it will be challenging for life in a really lovely way”. At The Abbey, Shonnelly was a piano scholar and felt the pressure of choosing between her love for music and biology. Shonnelly is a firm-believer that creativity does not have to be relinquished when choosing a STEM pathway. Outside of plastic surgery, Shonnelly has also participated in musicals and completes duathlons.
The value of kindness that The Abbey champions followed Shonnelly throughout her career journey, and which she channels through voluntary work too. Shonnelly is Trustee and Chair of the Trainee Section at CLEFT and volunteers with The Doctors’ Association UK to protect doctors that have been discriminated against in the workplace. Shonnelly’s story highlights that success takes many forms and adopting a civic-minded approach to one’s endeavours brings both professional and personal fulfilment.
Shonnelly looks back on her time at The Abbey fondly – “I remember giggling a lot at the winter pantomime. Some of the male teachers would dress up as women […] I remember sitting there and our sides were hurting from laughing so much”.
Shonnelly’s time at The Abbey has left a significant impact on her life, most of all, the special relationships she formed here, which continue to this day. “You spend these formative years of your life with these people. Of my four friends that went to The Abbey, one is a singer, one is a project manager, we all do very different things but we are all very united by our memories of The Abbey and that’s a really special bond that I don’t think I have with anyone else.”
