Changing direction

Greetings

I know I’ve been pretty lousy with updating the blog. A lot has been happening though, and I am determined to keep you in the picture. In fact, I've been composing posts for a qhile now, but just haven't gotten near a computer.

Anyway, recently I've had a bit of a career alteration. A couple of months ago I was offered a chance to do an intercalated three-year PhD before completing med school. I was successful in my application, and will begin tomorrow! My research project will be looking at developing a technique called diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging as a modality to look at premature babies' brains. We can now save babies born very prematurely, but unfortunately many of these suffer significant long-term learning and behavioural problems. My supervisors think that this is probably due to abnormal brain development in the ex-utero environment, so I will compare temporal changes in a part of the brain called the subplate in premature and term babies. We will then explore what can be done to improve long-term prognosis. It's an exciting project and I'm looking forward to starting. I am worried about how much medicine I'll forget in the intervening period, though. Now I won't graduate until 2010! How will I keep up to date??

Moc