Profile

I’m a special type of doctor that uses X-rays – called a RADIOLOGIST.

A ‘radiologist’ means that we use RADIATION to do things. Radiation is like tiny invisible waves of light. Just like taking a photograph, we can use X-ray radiation to take ‘see-through’ pictures of the human body. The only problem is – radiation can be dangerous, so we have to be very careful about how many X-rays we use!

You might have had an X-ray if you were ever unlucky enough to break a bone! Or maybe your dentist has used X-rays to take pictures of your teeth?

 
X-rays are a special type of electromagnetic wave. They are a bit like light, but they are invisible. (This is why I’m in the Light Zone!) They have a short wavelength (the distance between the tops of the waves is super small), and they have a high energy. The high energy of X-rays means they can pass straight through you, but they can also damage you if you have too many at the same time. X-rays are found on the electromagnetic spectrum. They were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895, and are also called ‘Roentgen rays’ by some people.

The electromagnetic spectrum

Did you know that the sun and the stars are also a source of X-rays?

My work:

These days I spend half my time looking at X-ray pictures of the body, and the other half doing cancer research.

RESEARCH means asking scientific questions and finding the answers using experiments. I can use any of our scanner machines in new experiments, in different and exciting ways! We are working on making the pictures better quality, faster and more accurate.

What is cancer research?

Cancer is a disease that starts anywhere in the body. A few tiny cells start growing in strange ways, and get bigger and bigger and bigger over time. When the cancer is big enough you start to get very sick. If we can design machines to take pictures of cancer when it is really, really small then we can stop it growing before it gets too big!

The big question I want to know the answer to is ‘Can we find cancer earlier than is already possible?‘. If we can find a new way to find cancer inside people then maybe we can make them better faster!

On Mondays and Tuesdays I spend my time doing research – performing experiments and looking at the results.

On Wednesdays and Thursdays I work as a radiologist, looking at pictures of people who are sick, and finding out what is wrong with them.

On Fridays I write about everything I have done that week. At the end of my research degree (it takes 2 years 🙁 ) I need to write a really long book about my experiments and my results! Hopefully I will be able to write about a new way to find cancer in men.