Mandy Perry

"My personality types show that I am a Coordinator, Influencer and Manager, and I think these represent me well. I love pulling people together to solve a problem as a team, and try to engage colleagues in active discussion. I always try to see the picture from others' perspective and am comfortable to be a mediator and explain other people's needs. I love the challenge of communicating complex principles in a way that people can understand, and this can be within my laboratory, to clinicians, or to non-specialists. I am developing my leadership skills, which means being a good listener too. I try to be very organised by making lists about everything - I find that once I write something down, I can prioritise tasks and visualise issues more clearly."

"I am an expert in interpretation and understanding blood test results (and urine and stool results too!). I do not work directly with patients, but I do directly support doctors to help them understand their patient's results. Clinical Biochemists need to have good technical knowledge (i.e. How does this test work? Do any drugs interfere with the results?) and understand the clinical context too (Is this test valid in someone who is post-menopausal? Does a value this high mean that the patient certainly has condition X?). I also introduce new tests into the laboratory repertoire, usually after liaising with clinicians. It is really satisfying to change patient pathways which leads to better patient care. I work with a team of Biomedical Scientists who are experts at generating test results (in excess of 20,00 results every day!), but my job centres around understanding a few results which are very abnormal or have changed a lot since last time. It is important to have good IT skills (IT is crucial now to generating results, not least because we work with such huge numbers of samples); enjoy robots; enjoy working in a team of scientists (so good people skills); enjoy talking on the telephone (this is a big part of the job!), and to have an enquiring mind. "

"My training post as a Trainee Clinical Biochemist was my first proper job. Before that I only had casual jobs waitressing or working in a vinegar factory! When I was choosing my A-levels I nearly chose English, History and Music, but in the end I chose Maths, Physics and Chemistry. I really enjoyed my A-Levels, but then it was more decision making to chose what to study after. Every choice I made seemed to be narrowing my horizons, and I didn't like that as I've always been a jack of all trades! In the end I chose Chemstry, which was a bit odd as I found this the hardest A-Level by far! I thought that it should not cut off any roards for me as it is a very central science. During my degree, I did a year in industry for a biotech company and then I realised that I was more interested in what moecules did rather than just making them. I then went on to do a PhD which involved some chemistry, but only as a mechanism to make some really cool enzymes with modified activity. I was not ready to move into the workplace after my degree, and found a PhD the easy option - perhaps because I was staying in the same environment. My PhD taught me that actually it is applied science and people that floats my boat, and then I found out about opportunities in the NHS for scientists. I got a place on the training scheme and have not looked back."

"In my spare time I love being with my young family. I have two small children, and spending time with them and my husband is my favourite thing to do. I used to do a lot of rock climbing, and hope to get back into this one day once my kids are older! I still really enjoy exercise, and integrate it with travelling to work - at one stage I was running with a double buggy and both kids - phew, exhausting! "

"My job is computer-based. I look at patient's blood test results that have come to the authorisation queue, and call clinicians if they are concerning. Usually I just may leave a comment if the result is important but not urgent. I have been writing some talks recently, one for the lab about changes to our processes and another one to GPs in Devon and Cornwall about some imporatnt laboratory snippets that may be useful to them. Both have been very well received. I will answer some emails about our service and look at some quality control data for one of our analysers where the assay is behaving strangely. "

"A-Levels in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Music (AS Level) - I had no idea what to do next, so I decided to do chemistry at university as I felt this was the most central science and I could move anywhere with it.MChem (Ind) - Undergraduate masters degree in Chemistry with a year on industrial placement. I was unsure about which path to take, so I remained in academia and undertook a PhD. PhD - PhD using the directed evolution of enzymes, which involved synthetic chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology. I had finally come to the conclusion that I wanted to work in applied science, ideally the NHS, where I would have the opportunity to help patients.MSc in Clinical Biochemisty - This was integrated into the NHS training programme for Clinical Biochemistry training (before the days of the National School of Healthcare Science).FRCPath - Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists - phew, I've made it!"