Profile – Medical Physics Zone

Education:

Queen Elizabeth High School, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire 1991-1998; University College London 1998-2001 and 2001-2003; Loughborough University 2005-2009
Qualifications:

BSc (Physics with Medical Physics); MSc (Radiation Physics); DipIPEM; PhD; registered Clinical Scientist; CSci (Chartered Scientist)
Work History:

Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, London (Trainee Clinical Scientist, 2001-2005); Sleep Research Centre, Loughborough (Research Associate, 2005-2007; PhD 2005-2008)
Current Job:

Principal Clinical Scientist (Clinical Measurement)

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The work that I do can be split into two main areas: Clinical and Development. Clinical things that I do include monitoring of the spinal cord during operations to correct its curvature; leading a service that uses a device to measure the amount of oxygen in the blood when people are asleep to diagnose a sleep disorder where people stop breathing during the night (called obstructive sleep apnoea, OSA:

normal trace

trace of someone with OSA

and setting up equipment to monitor the pressures inside the skull.

Development projects that I have done include designing and building a device to alert a person who is paralysed from the neck down as to when their urine bag is getting full (that makes me in inventor!)

and putting together a system to measure how good we are at helping babies to begin breathing when they have difficulty breathing on their own .

In terms of life outside of work, here’s a picture of me on my wedding day, 6th Oct 2012! .
My Typical Day:

My days can vary widely; on one day I will be in theatre monitoring a patient’s spine, on another day I will be in the office analysing data and on another I might be teaching people how to use lasers safely. No two days are ever the same!
What I'd do with the prize money:

I’d use it to raise awareness of what we do, so that when people hear about hospitals, they don’t just think of doctors and nurses.

Charlotte Kemp