Question: explain your job? PhD in Cardiovascular Medicine

Mike Dodd answered on 15 Jun 2011:

Hey Shanlacey, My job is research. As a PhD student, I spend my days try to answer questions about heart disease. How’s it’s cause, how it can be treated and what can be done to prevent it. I’m actually a very very small part in answering these questions. I have my own set of questions, which along with other people will hopefully benefit people that suffer from heart disease.

I use large magnets, called MRI. These MRI machines are used to look inside the body, like a window but without having to cut open anyone. You can see the heart beating or the blood flowing into the liver. You can see if there is damage to the brain or cancer in the lung. I use this machine to see what happens to the heart when it goes wrong. When it goes wrong, it stops or reduces it’s normal fuel, fat. This switch seems to be the point where the heart starts to give up and fails to pump blood properly around the body. I want to see why this happens and if it can be prevented.

Normally I use my magnet for 3-4 hours in the morning, trying out different drugs/medicines. Then I spend the rest of the day reading about what other people in my research topic are doing, looking at my data from the morning and thinking about what I can do next.