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I Went To A Planetarium...


JT!

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Being a doctor is probably one of the most interesting jobs I could think of.

I think so too :)

are you looking to do a Phd?

No way, no how. I'm doing a lab project now for my BSc and it's boring. In fact as we speak I'm skiving off - I'm supposed to be using the expensive microscope looking at my in situ hybridisation slides but it's too boring. I've been here 5 weeks (only 3 days a week as well) and PhDs are at least three years...

I think psychology is a pretty good degree to be honest. Just do something you're interested in, the rest will follow.

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Yeah, I see the career as a by-product of the degree, not the reason to do it. i'm only in it for the learning. i'd still do it, even if i ended up working at tesco's.

molecular biology is a bit intensive for me, i sort of get what hybridization is, what are you looking for?

Don't pay too much attention to the name in situ hybridisation - I think it's a bit misleading. Basically we have an RNA 'probe' that binds to a particular RNA sequence in a cell. Then it gets very complicated, and after that we can look at it under a microscope. We're looking at heart cells, specifically at the ion channels on the surface of the cell, and how these channels change from neonates to adults. This is the latest picture I just took - a sodium channel hybridisation, in neonatal ventricular tissue - this is the epicardium. You can see the RNA staining around the nucleus of the cell. Interesting, huh?

Three days' work have culminated in this picture and 11 others :huh:

post-40-1204130604_thumb.jpg

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Don't pay too much attention to the name in situ hybridisation - I think it's a bit misleading. Basically we have an RNA 'probe' that binds to a particular RNA sequence in a cell. Then it gets very complicated, and after that we can look at it under a microscope. We're looking at heart cells, specifically at the ion channels on the surface of the cell, and how these channels change from neonates to adults. This is the latest picture I just took - a sodium channel hybridisation, in neonatal ventricular tissue - this is the epicardium. You can see the RNA staining around the nucleus of the cell. Interesting, huh?

*what happens to your ticker as you grow up :P

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Sorry for my ignorance, but what is the purpose?

Knowing more stuff to make you look good in front of other scientists doing the same thing?

More understanding of the basic physiology might allow us to understand certain age-related conditions better (E.g. heart failure) so perhaps we can design drugs that will help. But that's a long way off at the moment really. It's pretty abstract.

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Nah, should have asked it better. What was the problem to warrent such time consuming work?

No I think I did understand your question but there's no obvious answer. There's no 'problem' as such. We just don't have a complete understanding of the human body so we do more and more experiments until our understanding is increased. That's pretty much all there is to it :S

But to explain a bit better: Basically children (especially babies) have a much higher heart rate than adults. Also athletic people have slower heart rates than non-athletic types. This difference is in part due to the hormones and neuronal control (E.g. Adrenaline - a hormone - increases your heart rate) but it's also due to the actual heart cells itself. If you take a baby's heart cells and stick them in a petri dish (I.e. with no hormones/anything else) they will still beat faster than adult heart cells in the same situation. This difference in the intrinsic heart rate is probably due to differences in the ion channel make-up of young/old hearts.

If we understand why the change occurs, perhaps we can treat it when it gets really bad (I.e. in heart failure).

This line of work is naturally very time-consuming but there are plenty of people across the world doing similar things. Science seems to be incredibly painstaking these days.

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No I think I did understand your question but there's no obvious answer. There's no 'problem' as such. We just don't have a complete understanding of the human body so we do more and more experiments until our understanding is increased. That's pretty much all there is to it :S

But to explain a bit better: Basically children (especially babies) have a much higher heart rate than adults. Also athletic people have slower heart rates than non-athletic types. This difference is in part due to the hormones and neuronal control (E.g. Adrenaline - a hormone - increases your heart rate) but it's also due to the actual heart cells itself. If you take a baby's heart cells and stick them in a petri dish (I.e. with no hormones/anything else) they will still beat faster than adult heart cells in the same situation. This difference in the intrinsic heart rate is probably due to differences in the ion channel make-up of young/old hearts.

If we understand why the change occurs, perhaps we can treat it when it gets really bad (I.e. in heart failure).

This line of work is naturally very time-consuming but there are plenty of people across the world doing similar things. Science seems to be incredibly painstaking these days.

Dayum! My brain just melted >_<

You're gonna be on a high paying salary soon then ?

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Dayum! My brain just melted >_<

You're gonna be on a high paying salary soon then ?

At some point. In 18 months (assuming I pass everything) I will get a basic junior doctor rate - that's nothing to write home about (especially after 6 years of university) but it should go up fairly steeply after that :smartass:

One of the doctors at the MRI (big hospital in Manchester) flies his own plane to the alps to go skiing. I want to be him...

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At some point. In 18 months (assuming I pass everything) I will get a basic junior doctor rate - that's nothing to write home about (especially after 6 years of university) but it should go up fairly steeply after that :smartass:

One of the doctors at the MRI (big hospital in Manchester) flies his own plane to the alps to go skiing. I want to be him...

and when you are him, you're taking all of TF Skiing... :)

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what you going to do doctor wise? I can think of nothing worse than being a gp in a surgery, obviously the pay is pretty good but people coming in constantly with things like colds and flu. I think that would get boring. also all the disgusting things you have to do and see.

I'd love to work in a large hospital in a&e or something you'd see different injurys everyday and you'd get a real sense of helping people

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what you going to do doctor wise? I can think of nothing worse than being a gp in a surgery, obviously the pay is pretty good but people coming in constantly with things like colds and flu. I think that would get boring. also all the disgusting things you have to do and see.

I'd love to work in a large hospital in a&e or something you'd see different injurys everyday and you'd get a real sense of helping people

I agree with you a bit about being a GP. In terms of medicine I think it would be pretty dull. You don't get to see an awful of stuff, and anything interesting usually gets referred to the hospital. However, it's a pretty easy-going job, and at the moment being a GP pays quite a lot better than being a hospital doc. Compared to any job outside of medicine, I would love to be a GP. But compared to the other things you can do as a doctor, I don't like the idea.

A&E is cool I think, I could see myself doing that. The pay isn't amazing (there's no scope for private practice which is where all the rich docs gets their money from...) and the hours are terrible, but it would be interesting I think. Or general surgery, but I really don't know. At the moment I basically want something that's interesting and varied. I can't really imagine being, say, an orthopaedic surgeon and ONLY doing bone stuff 24/7. In fact most orthopaedic surgeons usually specialise further and only do E.g. hips.

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I agree with you a bit about being a GP. In terms of medicine I think it would be pretty dull.

I agree, not to mention the old women who just seem to go to the GP practice simply to gossip and catch up with friends. I don't know about where you live, but here it is really bad.

They don't take next day appointments (only for emergencies) and so you have to ring at 9am on the dot; thats when everyone else rings and it'll be engaged for hours.

I went to the GP with a collapsed lung...I could tell it was the most interesting thing he'd seen in a long time, he even got medical students and other doctors in to see.

But yea, in the waiting room it was just full of old women who came in because when they think they're ill, it gives them something to talk about...

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It is a bit like that but not as much as you think. As a student I went to a GP basically one day per week for 2 years and you usually see something interesting. Once you know everyone's full history, things can be more challenging - it's rarely just a case of giving them antibiotics and sending them on their way.

The other thing about GPs though is the variety. Whilst all hospital doctors are pretty good (in terms of knowledge etc), some GPs can get away with being terrible, while others are great.

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