{"id":1550,"date":"2013-06-04T14:32:22","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T03:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-blogs-monash-edu.pantheonsite.io\/rural-health\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2013-06-04T14:32:22","modified_gmt":"2013-06-04T03:32:22","slug":"after-a-year-at-oxford-uni-back-to-bendigo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/2013\/06\/04\/after-a-year-at-oxford-uni-back-to-bendigo\/","title":{"rendered":"After a year at Oxford Uni, back to Bendigo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The opportunities that come about through spending time at one of the School of Rural Health clinical schools are as diverse as they are interesting.\u00a0 Just ask Dr Joe O\u2019Brien, a former Year 4C and Year 5D student who has returned to Bendigo after a 12 month research stint at Oxford University in the UK. <\/em><\/p>\n

He is back in Bendigo working as an intern at Bendigo Health.\u00a0 The following is Joe\u2019s story.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the middle of my fourth year of medical school in 2010, I made an eleventh hour decision to do a BMedSc but narrowly missed out on securing a research position at one of the overseas institutions I had been corresponding with.<\/p>\n

With the permission of the university to do a BMedSc post-5th year, and a very understanding Monash supervisor on board \u2013 the affable and ever so efficient Associate Professor Pamela Snow – I now had a whole year to nail down a project anywhere I like, in any field of my choosing. This is how I ended up completing a lab-based project at the University of Oxford’s Centre for Diabetes, Endocrine and Metabolism.<\/p>\n

Under the supervision of Professor Fredrik Karpe, an expert in the field of lipid and diabetes metabolism, I spent roughly nine months investigating the role of novel nucleic acids known as micro-RNA in the metabolic inflammation of obesity.<\/p>\n

Roughly put, the risk of thromboembolic events in the obese is mostly driven by the rupture of atherosclerotic (fatty) plaques in the arteries. Inflammation is a big factor in what makes parts of these plaques flick off, and bigger-than-normal fat cells put out a lot of inflammatory chemicals into the bloodstream.<\/p>\n

My project was essentially trying to make it ‘safer’ to be fat by playing about with these microRNAs, turning off the inflammatory part of their cellular pathways.<\/p>\n

After several months of labwork, I completed my thesis. Unfortunately the result was negative, but the concept of manipulating inflammatory cellular signals with microRNA is still in its infancy and remains a promising field for future work.<\/p>\n

My 12 months in the UK were amazing, and I was exposed to a world class centre of research. I would never have been able to complete my project without the help of the team at OCDEM and Bendigo’s own Pam Snow. I would encourage any students contemplating a BMedSc year to ensure they have a supervisor as helpful as Pam, because you never know what challenges the year will throw in your direction.<\/p>\n

I have followed up a successful 2012 by officially starting my medical career here at Bendigo Base Hospital. The time I spent in Bendigo as a student has been invaluable towards ensuring a smooth transition from student to doctor.<\/p>\n

This year I have the opportunity to rotate through Surgery, Medicine, Emergency and Cardiology. I look forward to completing the rest of my time here and am always happy to answer any questions students may have about career opportunities in rural medicine.<\/p>\n

By Dr Joe O\u2019Brien<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The opportunities that come about through spending time at one of the School of Rural Health clinical schools are as diverse as they are interesting.\u00a0 Just ask Dr Joe O\u2019Brien, a former Year 4C and Year 5D student who has returned to Bendigo after a 12 month research stint at Oxford University in the UK. […]<\/p>\n Read More...<\/a>","protected":false},"author":797,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1520,1581,2082],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/797"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1553,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions\/1553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}