This week (/last week really) it’s my turn to blog – how exciting! So, I was the last of the eight to join this years’ cohort, but couldn’t have been made more welcomed by everyone. Though, sharing a little honesty with you all now, when I first joined I did initially wonder what I had let myself in for! [See we’re a very unique bunch of budding scientists!]. Looking back now, and following a truly remarkable 6 months, I most definitely ‘fit’ into this assortment – there’s still a few European customs that I’m not convinced should be freely shared within the group.
So a little about me, well first my PhD will see me employ advanced metabolic profiling techniques in living donor kidney transplantations with the ultimate goal to hopefully both improve success and survival rates on an individual stratified medicine level. A valuable endeavour owing to an increased end stage renal failure rate, a subsequent inflated transplant list and limited availability of suitable grafts, as well as a global promotion to living donor nephrectomy. May have copied and pasted that last sentence there, previously written very nicely I think!
Anyway getting back on track, and towards the title of this post, we’ve all been given our dreaded 9-month viva deadlines recently, and this left me pondering about – now how did I put it before – these ‘truly remarkable 6 months’. I think I can speak for all of the STRATiGRADs here as well, when I say already the highs have been great and the lows devastating – focusing on the highs, meeting all the fantastic people within the CSM department, learning some of the most forefront concepts in scientific research, working with renowned professionals – which saw me attend the operation theatre with my second supervisor to witness, very close, how a perform a kidney transplant – and of course how could I forget Friday Club and re-naming Torben.
Lows = data analysis, data analysis and data analysis.
I may have found myself sharing a little more than I’m usually comfortable with, especially following the average first encounter. Though, I feel opening up like this has been good for me – therapy-ish maybe.
Here’s to the next 6 months!
Tom