Profile
Paul Booker
Ready for some questions!
My CV
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Education:
1999-2006 The Becket Comprehensive in Nottingham, 2006-2009 Oxford University and 2009-11 University College London
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Qualifications:
GCSEs, A-levels, a BA degree in physics and an MSc in medical physics, state registration as a Clinical Scientist
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Work History:
Oxford and Nottingham
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Current Job:
I’m officially a Clinical Scientist, but in particular a Radiotherapy Physicist
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Read more
In radiotherapy, the job of a Clinical Scientist is to ensure that the treatment prescribed by the patient’s doctor (a Clinical Oncologist) is as good as it can be. Apart from in a few special cases we don’t actually treat the patient, that’s the job of a Radiographer, but we’re involved in everything in between. For example:
Planning the treatments so the correct amount of radiation goes to the cancer, but carefully avoids all the other bits of your body
Checking the machines that deliver radiation (‘linacs’) which cost £1-2 million pounds are actually working as they should
Maintaining all the different computer systems in the department
Introducing newer techniques to do step 1 even better!There’s lots more – message me if you want even more details!
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My Typical Day:
Calibrating machines, planning treatments, troubleshooting problems and drinking tea
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Read more
Radiotherapy is a very precise branch of medicine, which is important as using too little radiation will mean a cancer isn’t properly treated and the patient may not be cured, but giving too much may harm the patient in other ways. A lot of my time in radiotherapy is spent working out the best way to treat a particular cancer. We do this by using computer simulation software to try different ways of using the linac, using the CT scan we have of a patient.
Follow the link and have a go yourself! Click on radiotherapy and see if you can treat the patient successfully (don’t worry if you don’t get it right first time, this is exactly how we develop our plans for real) http://www.insidestory.iop.org/insidestory_flash1.html
We have a huge number of different checks that we do on the machines used in radiotherapy (‘linacs’), and they have to be done in a way that minimises the impact on the patient, so we do some checks in the morning before treatments begin. As an example, As an example, we quite often have earlyish starts (7:30-8) to check the calibration of one of our machines. This involves measuring the amount of radiation produced by the machine to very high precision, and changing it if needed.
Much, much more! -
What I'd do with the prize money:
Set up a website/blog and hopefully an interactive game to help demonstrate what scientists in hospitals do…
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Spiky-haired, nerdy and hungry
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Yes, for talking pretty much non-stop
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Mumford & Sons
What's your favourite food?
Sausage rolls, pork pie – basically any pork-based savoury foodstuff
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
Be able to travel the world, and also travel to space, and become an elite table tennis player. (In fact table tennis in space would be cool)
Tell us a joke.
A neutron walks into a bar and asks for a pint of beer. When he asks how much, the bartender replies “For you, no charge”!
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