First week completed working for British Heart Foundation with the Healthcare and Innovations team!
Each day this week has brought something a little different meaning time has flown by. Monday started with a tour of the office in North London (attempting to remember everyone’s name!) and a presentation from the Chief Executive of BHF to all members of staff to summarise what BHF has been doing over the last 2 years and where it hopes to go in the future. I then spent a few hours getting to grips with the NHS terminology and acronyms in some of the evaluations I would be tackling later in the week. The afternoon consisted of a meeting with an external charity to see if BHF could benefit from some of their work and resources.
Tuesday mornings task challenged my ability to speed read. I consumed 150 pages of detailed evaluations of projects undertaken by BHF. It was fascinating stuff but at this stage I wasn’t quite clear how to use this information so made my own judgements. Team building lunch at Prezzo was very enjoyable and gave me the opportunity to integrate into the team. We then headed off to a meeting about a current pilot study that appeared to going really well and would give some useful results.
On Wednesday I was allocated time to clarify my role with Eleanor and Sarah (members of Healthcare and Innovations team) and things started to come together and make sense. At this point my diary was filled with meetings with various people from different departments which will give me a brilliant over view of how the charity works. With a more focussed and targeted view I could rethink my analysis of the evaluations I had read earlier in the week and start cross referencing to government policies.
Thursday morning I was a bit tired having moved out of my flat the night before so was a bit slow to start. I then had a meeting with a member of Children and Young People Team who explained the need for their resources and support for young people suffering with heart conditions. A trip to a Mexican place just down the road for Amy’s Birthday was another great chance to talk to people and understand what paths they had taken to reach their position in BHF. In the afternoon I had a meeting with a fellow scientist, Matt, who worked in the resources team. Matt had also studied biochemistry at university so we had quite a lot in common! He explained the work he had done for his PhD and how his science background was crucial to his role now within the BHF.
Friday consisted of a meeting with Jess, Health at Work team and Eleanor who is involved in the translational grants. Both of these meetings were very interesting and helpful for me to think about possible paths I might take in the future.
As I stood on the 5.49 train home, I reflected about the week and couldn’t help but get excited about what the next three weeks had in store!