Healthcare Science Week - celebrating the curious | News
Healthcare Science Week - celebrating the curious
This week we’re celebrating the 240+ healthcare scientists who are the scientific backbone of Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust. Their largely behind–the-scenes work shapes how patients are diagnosed, treated and cared for every single day.
Nationally, healthcare science underpins 80% of all NHS diagnoses and three in four clinical decisions are informed by scientific expertise. At Royal Surrey, there are teams in a range of healthcare science specialisms influencing and informing care. Lead Healthcare Scientist at Royal Surrey, Dr Gail Anastasi Distefano, reflects on what the week means:
“The different specialisms sit at the cutting edge of healthcare and really affect our patients’ experience and outcomes. Healthcare Science week gives us a chance to shout about their impact and inspire the curiosity of keen scientists who want to use their science in a patient-focussed environment.”
Healthcare scientists at Royal Surrey work in specialisms which can be broadly categorised into four groups: Physiological Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering and Clinical Bioinformatics.
| PHYSIOLOGICAL SCIENCES | LIFE SCIENCES | PHYSICAL SCIENCES & BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING | CLINICAL BIOINFORMATICS |
|
Audiology Neurophysiology Cardiac Physiology Echocardiography |
Blood Sciences Cellular Pathology (Histology) Molecular Diagnostics Point of Care team |
Nuclear Medicine Radiotherapy Physics Radiation Protection and Diagnostic Imaging Clinical Photography |
Clinical Scientific Computing |
Routes into healthcare science are almost as disparate as the number of specialisms; more than 15% of people starting an NHS healthcare science career already hold a research qualification, others go via apprenticeships or straight onto national healthcare science training programmes.
Eliana Salas Villa - Clinical Computer Scientist
Eliana has just started her career at Royal Surrey in the Scientific computing (SciCom) team as part of the NHS Scientist Training Programme (STP) Clinical Scientific Computing specialism. The SciCom team at Royal Surrey can be working on around 75 projects at any one time supporting clinicians to apply computer science, software engineering and data analysis to enhance patient care and clinical workflows.
It’s very rewarding because every day you feel like you’re contributing to something bigger than yourself. What you do is not just ‘routine data science’ you’re helping clinicians make better decisions for the patient. So even if your job involves upgrading a computer or analysing clinical images for example, you know that what you’re doing is really contributing. You can see that in the people I work with every day, they’re passionate people who’re motivated by the same aim – better care for our patients.
Eleonora Pignatelli – Cardiac Physiologist 
Eleonora is one of our lead specialists involved in the implantation of heart devices and has recently completed two prestigious qualifications in her field. Her expertise lies in the assessment of need, the surgical implanting and the technical monitoring of cardiac devices ranging from pacemakers to more complex implantable defibrillators delivering heart therapy to patients with heart failure.
Every day is different. I love the team aspect, the requirements to trouble-shoot, spot a problem and resolve it quickly, the interaction with patients, the need for detail, analysis and quick thinking and most of all the potential to have a really big impact on the quality of a patient’s life.
To find out more about how to make a difference in a healthcare science role visit the NHS careers website or get more information about training on the National School of Healthcare Science website.