Profile

I currently live in Liverpool, but have studied, worked and lived all over the UK, from East Sussex to Shetland, Wales to Glasgow. I am happiest when outdoors, and am particularly fond of the “extreme” outdoor sports, though I am not as fearless as I was!

White water kayaking, rock climbing (particularly bouldering), hill walking, skiing and mountain biking are my favourites, but I am happy to try anything: sky-diving, caving, scuba-diving – if it looks like fun I will give it a go!

I live with my girlfriend (a semi-professional climber) and we will be getting a new dog to stay with us and come outdoors when we do.

When not outdoors I have been known to spend many a good evening playing computer games. I haven’t bought a new game in years but I reckon I could still beat anyone at a game of C&C Red Alert 2!

OK so I said I’m a doctor and that is true! But specifically I’m a pathologist – so I’m not who you would see at a GP or even if you came into hospital.

It doesn’t mean I work on the TV series CSI either! (although I have some friends who do something similar).

In fact my work as a pathology doctor involves taking lungs that have come from patients with cancer and using the information from them to guide other doctors, surgeons, cancer specialists and the patients to the best treatment options.

My own research focuses on a new style of drug used in cancer.

Simply put – these new drugs use the immune system to fight cancer. Normally the immune system fights infections like bacteria or viruses – but clever drugs gets them to fight cancer instead.

These drugs can work well but they aren’t perfect – so my research looks at ways we can make these better!

Most mornings I’ll get up, enjoy a big breakfast (my guilty pleasure is chocolate cereal) and cycle into work.

After saying hello and catching up with everyone, I’ll check my pigeonhole to look for any clinical work, and (hopefully quickly) go through any emails I have.

After this, no two days are ever the same – I might be spending the day in the labs preparing sections of lung for further work, perhaps staining them with specific antibodies. Or I might be scanning in lung cancer images and using digital image manipulation as part of my research.

I might be focused on my clinical work – diagnosing and identifying lung cancer from hospital patients and helping other doctors like oncologists and surgeons to form the best plan.

There are always plenty of meetings and events to prepare for and attend. Occasionally I get to present my work at big international events like World Conference on Lung Cancer – this year being held in Canada!

The days are busy but interesting, and the variation is very important to me. I will finish off by making a well deserved cup of tea, double checking those emails, and making sure I have completed what I wanted to for the day, and having a good plan for the rest of the week.

After this – a cycle home with hopefully enough time in the day to go down to the local climbing centre for an hour or two!