I was born in Leicester and then moved to Bedford. I then went to university in Nottingham and spent some time working with research animals at King’s college, London. I now live in Poole (near the seaside), and I’m studying for my masters at Newcastle (the other side of the country)!

I like shopping for new shoes and jewellery (the sparkier, the better!). In my free time, I do lots of arts and crafts at the library (last week, I made some funky bookmarks and this week I’ll be making some cool key-rings!)

I’m currently training to do a glow-in-the-dark run. This is where you dress up in fun fluorescent clothing, and you run in the dark for 5k. Hopefully I won’t trip over, or get lost!

1. Have you ever had a funny tummy, or had that spicy juice that comes from your stomach into the back of your throat? Or had a few days where you keep going to the loo more than normal? Or maybe even days where you haven’t gone to the loo at all?!
2. Do you know anybody that can only eat gluten-free, lactose-free, or fructose-free food? Where a slice of bread, a glass of cow’s milk, or a fruit smoothie could make them very, very ill?
3. Have you ever felt dizzy or faint, and wondered what could be causing it? Whether there was a change in heart rate or even your blood pressure when you feel dizzy?
4. How about whenever you exercise, can you feel your legs starting to hurt, and become more painful as you exercise? Have you ever wondered whether some people have poor arteries that is due to a lack of blood to their legs and feet muscles?

My job as a hospital clinical scientist is to try and better understand why people have these symptoms. I do this by trying to make them have the symptoms again in the hospital, but then I measure and record their changes using scientific equipment as it happens.

One of the days I came into work I had a very painful stomach ache. So, I did a hydrogen breath test. These are the results I had:

A healthy person should have:

• CH4 (methane)= less than 5ppm
• H2 (Hydrogen)= less than 5ppm
• O2 (Oxygen) %= as low from 21% as possible.

However, my results had shown good O2 %, good CH4, but a VERY HIGH H2 breath sample!

This shows that there was something definitely not digesting right in my intestines!

I start the day by looking at our diary and finding out what patients will be coming into the hospital, and what functional tests they will need. I then make sure the scientific equipment needed for the tests are working properly and accurately. I do this by calibrating them.

When the patient comes into the hospital for their test, I greet them and explain the procedure. Some tests can be up to 1 hour long, so it’s important to have lots of patience and to talk to the patient to make them feel comfortable!

I record the results during the test, and once I’ve got all the data I need, I report it and send it straight to the consultant.

I read lots of scientific papers to make sure that everything that I do in the hospital is up-to-date, and that I’m not doing anything wrong or different to other clinical scientists working in other hospitals. This is called standardization of investigations.

The £500 would be very useful to me as it would let our department buy portable equipment that can be taken to schools for children to practice with. A portable gastrolyser would allow children to measure their breath samples, and see the variation in hydrogen and methane production between their peers. A portable doppler would also be purchased which can be used to measure elasticity of the anterior tibial artery (in the foot) and determine direction of blood flow. Another exciting possibility would be purchasing Fitbits, which would allow students to measure their change in heart rate before and after exercise.  These activities would be delivered through a structured session with the involvement of classroom teachers.