Profile
Sarah Francis
Curriculum Vitae
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Education:
Greenwood Academy, University of Glasgow, University of Strathclyde
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Qualifications:
Higher Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Graphic Communication, English and History, Adv. Higher Maths, MEng Biomedical Engineering, MSc Biomedical Engineering
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Work History:
I started working as a waitress when I was 16 and stopped for my final year at University. Just before I graduated, I interviewed for my current job and was accepted onto the Scottish Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering Training Scheme.
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Current Job:
Trainee Clinical Scientist
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Employer:
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
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About Me
I am a 25 year old engineer from Glasgow who loves the outdoors! In my spare time I'll normally be out riding my bike, climbing or playing board games with friends.
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My Work
I am training to become a clinical scientist. In my job I use advanced pieces of equipment to help look after patients (specifically, their eyes!), and I also help to develop new technologies for the NHS to use.
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Read more
I am training to become a Clinical Scientist with the NHS. There are lots of different types of clinical scientists, including biologist, physicists and engineers. I am the latter – an engineer!
I studied Biomedical Engineering at the University of Glasgow, and after graduating I was accepted onto the ‘Scottish Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering Training Scheme‘. I am due to complete my training in February 2022.
My job is divided into two parts. I spend two days a week working in optical electrophysiology, where I conduct specialist tests on patients eyes. The tests that I do involve sticking electrodes onto a patients head and measuring the signal that appears when we show them some patterns. The analysis that we do helps clinicians to make diagnoses and treatment decisions.
The other three day a week I work at the Medical Devices Unit, which is a specialised group within NHS Greater Glasgow focussing on developing medical devices and providing scientific support to other departments. I have worked on many different projects there, including pyjamas that monitor how we breathe, and a tool that helps people with arthritis put in their own eye drops.
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My Typical Day: A typical day in electrophysiology for me involves seeing some patients in the morning clinic and then analysing their results in the afternoon. I spend the other three days a week working from home. I have a daily catch-up Teams call with my colleagues in the morning, and spend the rest of the day working on my current project from my computer.
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Read more
A typical day in electrophysiology for me involves seeing some patients in the morning clinic – we do lots of tests that take a long time to set up, and so each patient appointment normally lasts about 2 hours! I’ll then have a break for lunch and a chat with my colleagues, before sitting down to analyse the results in the afternoon. I use special software to compare the signals that we get from the morning tests to a bank of “normal” data (this means results from people that are known to have no problems with their eyesight). I pick out anything that looks different and report on what this could mean for the health of the patients eye and brain.
Because of COVID-19 I spend the other three days a week working from home. I have a daily Teams call with my colleagues in the morning, and spend the rest of the day working on my current project. At the moment I am working on a software project, so I might have a meeting in the morning with the clinical stakeholders to get their feedback on what I have done so far, and then spend the rest of the day making changes to my code.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
adventure-seeking engineer
What or who inspired you to follow your career?
When I was about 10 years old my parents took me to the Edinburgh Science Festival for the first time, where I remember taking part in activities like extracting DNA from a pea, performing minimally invasive surgery on a dummy and exploring a giant model of the respiratory tract by climbing into a giant nose! That's the first time I remember being really excited by science.
What was your favourite subject at school?
Physics and Mathematics
What did you want to be after you left school?
I didn't know really! I wanted to do something involving science and maths in a way that would feel meaningful
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Not really! I always enjoyed school, but I did get a bit fed up in my final year.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Jason Mraz
What's your favourite food?
Cheesy beanos!
What is the most fun thing you've done?
Went travelling around Croatia by myself!
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
I wish I was good at singing (I am really, REALLY bad), I wish I had the ability to teleport to anywhere in the world (imagine you could just nip to the Bahamas after work), and I wish the weekend was twice as long!
Tell us a joke.
I've been studying the similarities between wind turbines and human anatomy - but I've got to say, I'm not a fan.
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