"My Skills, My Life identified me as a Communicator, Coordinator and Influencer. This reflects me exactly. I spend most of my time communicating test results and clinical advice to hospital departments. Hospital teams want to know if a transplant will work and it is important to give the right result at the right time. I coordinate a team of 10 healthcare scientists and ensure they have every thing they need to perform to the best of their ability and for the benefit of our patients and donors. I have an influential role in patient care, I attend patient care meetings with Doctors and nurses discussing the best course of action to take. I am involved in training new and existing healthcare scientists and I'm currently a mentor to a trainee of the Biomedical Scientist Apprenticeship course. I am also a trainee on a Higher Specialist Scientist Training Programme, hopefully this will lead to becoming a Consultant Clinical Scientist."

"I work in organ transplantation science. I perform laboratory testing (crossmatching) that tells a Doctor if a donor can donate their organs to a patient and if the transplant will work. I am looking for shared genetic information between the donor and patient. If they have shared (compatible) genetic information they will go together like the correct key fitting into the correct lock and the transplant will work.If we put a non-compatible transplant into a patient it wouldn't work and this would be a waste of a kidney, heart lung or liver that could have helped somebody else.The thing I most enjoy about my job is making a difference to people's lives, often without a transplant the patients would die or have a poor quality of life. I love being involved in decisions that doctors and nurses make about patients.The trainee starting salary for my role is £28,050. Once qualified, £33,222 to £43,041 and the most senior Consultant Clinical Scientists can earn £102,506 depending on your experience and training."

"To get where I am today at school, I did 10 GCSEs including Maths, English and Science. I then went to college and did A-levels in Biology, Physics and Politics (I choose politics as I wanted to do something different to the usual A-levels). I then moved to Liverpool and studied a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Genetics. As part of my degree I did a year in industry in a routine toxicology laboratory, whilst I learnt a lot I did the same repetitive thing everyday with little interaction with anyone apart from the 3 people I worked with. I knew that when I finished my degree I wanted to do something with a public element, that gave me the opportunity to talk and meet new people. Just before I graduated I saw and advert for a Trainee Clinical Scientist post, the advert talked about making clinical decisions, being involved in a large clinical team and included the science I had always loved. I did a three year training program and became a fully qualified Clinical Scientist. I have then worked my way through the different levels of being a Clinical Scientist. I have taken advantage of opportunities that have come may way. My employer paid for me to study a post graduate Masters degree. I am now a Senior Clinical Scientist and I am training to become a Consultant Clinical Scientist and hopefully in the next few years take aver from my boss when he retires.I have been able to do all this whilst still having two young children, proving that as woman you don't need to make a choice between an exciting career and being a mum."

"In my spare time I like to spend my time with my son and daughter, who are 7 and 5 and my husband. We have a little brown cockapoo puppy to take on walks. I am parent governor at my daughter's school as I am passionate about ensuring children receive the education and support they deserve.Some random interesting fact about me; I used to play rugby for my local ladies team when I was at college and often went to college on Monday morning with a black eye or covered in bruises. I am currently teaching myself to play the piano but so far can only play the Neighbours theme tune and Jingle bells. "

"I don't think I have a typical day as such, it varies from day to day. I may be in the lab with a lab coat on, doing urgent compatibility testing or I do a lot of writing reporting to hospitals. I manage my team and help them with any issues they have. I am involved in making sure that the lab follows the rules and guidelines set out for area of science. I provide training to staff, clinical teams and visitors to the lab. I am studying a professional doctorate so spend time at University, writing essays and carrying out projects. I attend meetings with others in the same field so i can find out about new developments. I have an interest in promoting science to woman, so I get involved in awareness projects.My job is exciting as no two days are ever the same!"

"After leaving school I did three A-levels, Biology, Physics, Politics and an AS level in Chemistry at a local college.I then moved to Liverpool and completed a BSc HONS in Applied Genetics at the University of Liverpool.After graduating I joined the Clinical Scientist Trainee program and obtained a Post Graduate Certificate in Histocompatibility & Immunogenetics.Eight years into my career I did a distance learning MSc in Biomedical Science, through the University of Ulster.I am now in the second year of the Higher Specialist Scientist Training Programme"