Doctors are great.  They’ll make you better when you’re sick, patch you up when you’re broken.  They are available 24 hours a day just in case you need a diagnosis or prescription. 

You feel safe with a doctor.  You know they will be careful with your ailment, and help ease you back to health.  It sounds obvious, but an upstanding member of the public like a doctor probably wouldn’t kick you in the face.

Well, except maybe for one exception.  22-year-old Carla Summerhill, a friendly, talented young medical student at Edinburgh University, is every inch the type of caring young medic a patient would always be pleased to visit.  But be warned – she also fits the bill as the kind of doc who will unleash a roundhouse without warning...

To be fair, you should probably expect it, because the only instance when this will happen is when you step into the ring with Carla, who also happens to be the British taekwondo champion for her weight category.

They don’t exactly go hand-in-hand – a doctor and a fighting champion.  But then again, taekwondo encourages more than combat.  Like many sports, it is first and foremost about competition, respect for your opponent and the use of skill and intelligence, rather than sheer brute force, as Carla explains to In The Winning Zone.

“There is great sportsmanship within taekwondo.  You congratulate your opponent after you fight them. I’m not at all aggressive normally and people are very shocked when they hear I do taekwondo because I am just this blond, smiley girl.  Yet I kick people for fun!”

She too appreciates the irony of her position as a doctor in a sport that involves mainly, as she puts it: “Fast kicking, spin kicks and high kicks.  You score one point for hitting the body and two for the head.  You get an extra point is the opponent is dazed and they get a standing count.”

“But it’s all about scoring points basically, not hurting people.  Yes, you get points for making someone getting a standing count, but it’s more about safety from their point of view.  And it hardly ever happens.  I’ve never been really hurt and have never really hurt anybody else. 

“Taekwondo is an agility sport, so if you are trying to kick someone with full force, it will slow you down.  Of course, you have to intimidate and show that you are good in the ring.  If you stand there looking meek then your opponent may feed off that.  But then some people are quiet because they know they are good, while others are much more aggressive.”

And Carla, a former regional-level swimmer and hockey player too, is also aware that it is unusual for a doctor to be doing a sport where injury is a distinct possibility.

“I think you are more likely to get injured playing hockey or rugby.  You are so well kitted up in taekwondo, with body armour and head guards.  I’ve only ever broken my wrist, and that was just from a silly mistake in training.  I was really exhausted and wasn’t concentrating.  I was fighting a boy and put my hand out in the wrong position and got kicked.  And it was just a tiny crack.”

Hold on, she fights boys too? Is she a maniac?

“There are lots of boys in our club, the Caledonian Taekwondo Club in Glasgow.  There are five or six girls of a good standard, but it’s good to have a range of sparring partners.  And the boys are decent, they don’t try to hurt you – the injury was my fault!”

Crowned British champ earlier this year, Carla, from Jordanhill in Glasgow, has been selected as the only female in the British Taekwondo team that will this month travel to Belgrade, Serbia, to compete at the World University Games – essentially the ‘Student Olympics’ with an athletes’ village and opening ceremony as standard.

So how does Carla feel about being the only girl in the team?

“At first I was a bit nervous, but a few weeks ago we all went down to Manchester for a training camp, so I got to know all the guys and I’m quite happy now – it’ll be fine!  One of the guys, Craig Eden, is actually from Scotland so I already know him quite well from our time with the Scotland team.  I know some of the girls from other sports too.”

It is Carla’s first multi-sport games, and, like the scientifically minded individual she is, her game-plan is based on a simple logic.

“Well it’s a knock-out competition, so you just have to take each fight as it comes.  I find that if you worry too much about winning a medal then you’re thinking too far in advance.  You should just look to the next match, think in the present.  Obviously I would love to get a medal and if I fight to my very best, maybe I could.”

To be going to the games at all, let along as British champion, is quite an achievement for a young woman who only took up the sport eight years ago, and has really only been competing seriously for the past twelve months.

“As I was studying medicine I didn’t do very much taekwondo as I was studying a lot.  I just trained for fun once or twice a week.  Then in July 2008 I thought I would give it a try to do it properly. 

“Since then I have been training five times a week, but I have to go back to Glasgow every night to do that.  It costs a lot in petrol to drive through, but luckily this year I have also been given a sports bursary from the university.  That has been brilliant, the financial support has really helped, as well as the strength and conditioning training and nutritional and psychological advice.”

And even though her workload is immense – it takes many hours each week, many weeks each year and many years to become a doctor – Carla wouldn’t want it any other way.

“I’m the kind of person that likes to be busy.  If I wasn’t doing this I’d be doing something else.  It makes me happy, and I am happy to commit to something that I get so much out of.  I have loads of friends at the club too – it’s like a family.  And it’s only an hour in the car – people who do rowing or sailing probably have to travel the same distance to get to the water each time they want to train.”

To cope with the pressure and intensity of such a large scale event, Carla has been taking lessons from a couple of the top-dogs in British taekwondo – Scotland coach John Cullen and 2008 Beijing bronze medallist, Sarah Stevenson.

“John knows Sarah quite well because he used to captain the British team and he commentated at the Olympics.  He set my friend Laura and I up to meet with Sarah and she chatted to us about the psychology work they do with the British team.

“She talked about ‘chimp thoughts’ – your fight or flight animal instincts.  And then human thoughts are the answer to that.  It was so interesting to see that someone who is so amazing also has the same nerves as us.  That was really good.”

Carla adopts her own form of self-psychology as well.  She calls it her ‘wee positive mantra,’ that is essentially a checklist of thoughts to keep her mental state positive before a fight.  Things like ‘I love this’, ‘I’m here because I enjoy this’, ‘I’m going to fight well’. 

“Because that’s what it comes down to,” says Carla.  “Even if you are chasing an Olympic gold, you can’t make your whole life about getting it, because you might go to the Olympics and break your leg.  It’s all about enjoying your life.  As long as I go in feeling happy then that’s OK.”

Speaking of Olympics, that Carla’s next step, somewhere between qualifying as a doctor and becoming a full-time professional medic, she hopes to squeeze a trip down to London, or perhaps elsewhere.

“I’m looking towards the Olympics, certainly.  That might be 2012 or it could be 2016.  Of course, there are so many others in the British team who are just brilliant, so you can only aspire.  It’s good to have goals, and 2012 is certainly one of them.  Then I could come back to medicine, then do a couple more years of full-time training in the lead-up to 2016.  Obviously when I’m 40 I won’t be able to win medals at the Olympics, but I can still be a doctor!”

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