Thursday, 10 November 2016

Extended work placement student Sophie Russell - Student Case Study


SATRO CASE STUDY

I currently study biology, chemistry, maths with mechanics and physics at Esher College. My particular interests are biology and chemistry, especially where they overlap in terms of genetics and chemical processes in the body. I then found that biochemistry was perfect for me, and I intend to study this at university. Post-university I would like to do a PhD or perhaps complete a master’s degree, in order to start out in a career in scientific research and truly gain a deep understanding in a focused area of biochemistry.

I applied for a SATRO placement in order to gain some experience of what it takes to have career in research, and to make sure that it is the path I really want to go down. I think that a month spent in the company of published researchers and doctors is invaluable, and I was especially excited for the potential to help them with their own research during my time there. I was placed in the Cardiology department at St George’s hospital, working alongside the doctors who also do research for the hospital’s attached university. They specialise in sports cardiology; that is, the physiological adaptation of the heart in response to athletic training (‘athlete’s heart’), and whether these adaptations are beneficial or actually harmful to the athlete. Another prominent area of research here is the diagnostic overlap between athletic physiology and disease of the heart, and the detrimental effects of an incorrect diagnosis for an individual. In my time here I have looked into sudden death in athletes taking part in the London Marathon. I have explored whether it is caused by an underlying heart condition, and how that may be differentiated from athlete’s heart on diagnosis, or whether their death was caused by their environment on the day of their event.

I have found that in most cases, it is the former; either inherited conditions that have not presented any symptoms prior to sudden death, or an accumulated disease of the coronary arteries. It is often assumed that the extremely healthy and active lifestyle of an athlete must act as a preventative for heart disease, but this is not always the case. For example, anyone with an inherited predisposition is at risk; their chances can be improved by a healthy diet and exercise, but the risk does not go away.
However, heat stroke was the condition that recurrently affected the most people during the event and was even the cause of one of the fatalities. So I concluded that while underlying disease is most likely to cause sudden death in an athlete, the environment cannot be underestimated in its danger to even the most experienced of marathoners.

From this placement, I have learnt a great deal about working in a small research group. I frequently had to seek advice and help from the other students on this project, and I found that this aided me in working out what was important and what needed changing in my report. Additionally, none of us had much background in sports cardiology, so we initially had to work hard together to understand the subject. I have enjoyed the write up process, trying to adhere to a professional journal article style. I have also learnt that reading and analysis are essential to research and making a balanced conclusion, and that this process is not always easy or fast. However the doctors here have been really patient, taking time out of their days to help us understand what we were looking at and giving great suggestions for project perspectives and focuses.

  - Sophie Russell

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