Where did you go and what did you do?
I went to the Julia Garnham Centre, which is a partnership between the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Children’s Hospital. The centre trains university students to carry out some of the large volumes of work that NHS genomics staff are tasked with.
I was in a university public engagement video whilst on placement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVRrHUykuIY
(see me from 1:07-1:13!)
What made you want to do that particular PIPS?
I was interested in having a career within the NHS after I’d finish my PhD, and so this was a convenient opportunity to get a taste of that.
What skills have you gained from your PIPS?
I now have a better understanding of genomics, which is not only useful for pursuing a career in biomedical research, but it’s also been helpful for my PhD project, too. Furthermore, I have developed my time managements skills, because I was doing my PIPS alongside my PhD project on a part-time basis, and I have developed my teaching skills because I helped the less experienced students if they didn’t understand something.
What has been the impact (or likely future impact) of your PIPS?
Firstly, I helped reduce the reporting time for blood cancer patients. To give you some context of what this means – in order to diagnose a patient with blood cancer or monitor the disease progression of a patient, a series of biological tests must be done. The results of these tests must be analysed and then reported to the patient and their doctor. However, analysing the results can take some time – time which NHS staff don’t currently have. So, I have helped analyse the results of at least 100 blood karyotyping tests, which means that the doctors and patients will know more quickly whether treatment is needed or not.
Secondly, I have been part of a trial group which tested an online teaching course. The course aims to train university students and NHS staff in becoming competent to perform variant analysis. Variant analysis is used to help diagnose a patient who is suspected of having a genetic disease. To begin, a patient’s DNA is sequenced to identify any mutations (a.k.a. variants) they have. Then using lots of different online databases, the variants are studied to try and determine whether they are disease-causing or benign.
The verdict on the teaching course was very positive, and so it will be used to train university students (and NHS staff, too!) so that they can help the NHS bring down the large backlog of variant analysis work that needs to be done.
How would you sum up your PIPS experience?
It was really great (so great that I’m still doing it, voluntarily). I’ve managed to meet a whole host of friendly and skilled people who I wouldn’t have met otherwise. Plus, it was very useful in giving me a taste of what working within the NHS is like, and showing me the routes on how to get there. And finally, it’s given me a great sense of gratification to have a direct, and positive impact on NHS patients.
What advice would you give to other PGRs about PIPS?
I would say that if there is any career outside academia which you’re interested in, but you’re not quite sure whether you’d want to follow that route, then the PIPS is the perfect opportunity to try it out! And you will likely also develop some very useful transferrable skills along the way.