Cardiology Research

Cardiology research mainly deals with commercial drug trials. There are exemplar portfolio studies funded by the NIHR and also private academic studies funded by Liverpool and Oxford universities. The universities employ their own staff by paying the wages for the staff. NIHR funded trials and few of the commercial trials are run by nurses who are employed by the CLRN. Because cardiology research is an established experienced unit, it can afford to pay for its own staff, hence we have staff who are funded by the research unit and are mainly doing the commercial studies, and also the portfolio studies.
The commercial drug trials are mainly run by the pharmaceutical companies. Most of the medicines on trial at the moment is for long term use in cardiac patients. There are strict inclusion criteria for recruiting patients in to the trial. Patients are recruited to the trial, provided with the study medication and will be followed up for minimum of two years according to the study protocol. Patient care and safety is always the most important point all the way through. If at all at some points if we feel that it is better for the patient not to continue in the trial, we always discontinue patients from the trial.
Patients always benefit from the extra time and attention they get from nurses and research doctors which wont be available for normal patients who are not in the programme. They also will have access to the new treatment option which is not available for other patients. They will have a point of contact 24 hours if any concern. Whilst they have the 3 month follow ups in the clinic, they will be given health advise on various things. Weight check is done and advice will be given on weight control. For patients who smoke, a fast track referal will be given for smoking cessation clinic. Routine medicine check will be done to make sure patients are on right drugs. Regular contact with the GP surgery also helps with the holistic patient care. Research nurses contact other clinics, or appointment areas if the patient has any issues of that kind.

Jade's Legacy.

Jade Goody passed away on mothers' day early morning. I never liked her, in fact, I hated her after the Big brother episode with Shilpa Shetty. Although I did not consider her as a celebrity, I still kept reading articles about her in magazines. Shilpa Shetty generated immense admiration in my mind because of the way she handled the issue with Jade in the Big brother house.
I was actually shocked when I heard about Jade's cervical cancer. Like everyone else, I also did now know the seriousness of the illness untill it came in the news papers that it had affected few other systems in her body and it is in an irrecoverable stage. After few sessions of chemotherapy and operations, Jade fianlly lost her battle against cancer.
I feel extremely sorry for Jade, and it was heart breaking to see her children at her bedside in the hospital. Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the united kingdom. I am happy to notice the increased awareness and interest to get screened for cancer in people, especially women. The government is planning to reduce the age for screening for cervical cancer from 25yrs to 20 years. I urge every women out there to go and get it done. cancer is curable if diagnosed early.
After Jade's episode, I have become a lot more appreciative of life. I am a lot more thankful to God for each and every day, and I try to enjoy my life. Jade, being a person I never liked, helped me to be a better human being. Thanks Jade.
I hope Jade's legacy will save a lot of young women in the world from cervical cancer.

May her soul rest in peace!

I am back again!

I have not done any blog write ups for about six months now. I wanted to do some, did not get time to sit down and write. I had a very busy few months, trip to India, more responsibilities at work etc. Although it is only my thoughts, it needs some time and preparation to write a blog post.
I am preparing the science questionnaire for kids in year 5 and in year 6, which I am going to post in here later. I hope some out there will benefit from it. I had to do a lot of research to help my child for the exams every year. The education system in England is totally different from of what we have in India. It is not the by-heart text book technique which is going to earn you grades here. Children are given home works, but not as much as they do in India. In other words, kids can stay as kids more and students less.
I got my British passport now. So officially British in nationality. Although I feel weird sometimes when I think about it, I am happy and relieved now. Because the nationality and immigration rules are changed every now and then, the permanent residency and nationality were always used to be a worry for us immigrants.
Our dream house is finished now. It is all ready now for us to start live in. It took nearly one year to complete the works and we had to spent a lot more money than expected. However, happy that it is finally done.
So, that is all for now, I will start writing my next post soon. Please keep reading and commenting on them. Thanks to you all.

Well done guys!

After two narrowly missed final games, India won a series beating Srilanka in Srilanka. All the credit goes to MS Dhoni, for his great leadership and an excellent allrounder performance in all the games he played. He is back on the first place again as the world’s no.1 batsman according to ICC ranking. His young side has done well, even though there were some silly fielding mistakes. Yuvraj Singh continues his bad form while Zaheer khan and Praveen Kumar are back to the team in excellent form. As I have always said, its high time we give Yuvraj Singh a break. Like Sreesanth and Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj singh also should be dropped from the national squad so that he will get a chance to play in domestic games and prove himself. It is like a waste of space he is in the team. We remember his contributions for the team in the last few years, and we have loved him and paid him for that. Now when he is not taking the game seriously as he used to do before, a small interval from the international arena will give him some time to think and correct himself. The best thing came out from this tournament is that our guys are confident now to play Mendis and score runs off him. Suresh Raina may be the most promising youngster in the squad and I feel that he is going to be around for quite some time. Like Dhoni said, a cricket match cannot be won by individual performances, it is team effort that will get us the result.
Dhoni held the centre spot in all the games India played. He controlled the the whole team, he did all the thinking for the team, and he played superb knocks in all the games. Without him, it was totally impossible for our team to win even a single game, let alone the cup. Ever since he took his place in the team, he is a key batsman for the team. He is an intelligent cricketer, and a great leader. He stood for his team, played for his team, more than for his own gain. He led the group of young inexperienced group of players to win the tournament, which was “written off” by all the game pundits. Dhoni, we love you, and thank you very much for your hard work!

I am sorry for Badrinath , he could not really create an impact with bat or with his fielding. It was a great chance he got after waiting for many years for a place in the national team. I personally thought he did a good job with Dhoni in the second game, and that partnership took us in to victory. But that was it, other than that there was no noticeable performance from his side. I hope he will get another chance in the test team against Australia. All the best to you, Badrinath!
..

KP - The new leader!

KP has taken over England’s captaincy. Now what we all need to see is that how is KP going to manage his excellent form and the captaincy at the same time. I can’t wait for the next IPL season when KP is going to be playing for Mumbai team. KP was always my favourite foreign cricketer ever. I am truly worried for KP that the pressure of captaincy may affect his batting. (Remember what happened to Sachin!) Now he is a sure bet for his side as far as runs are concerned. Since Vaughan and Collingwood resigned from their jobs in the interval of one day, it is KP who is going to take over the responsibility of both one day and test side for England. For me, KP is a role model for modern day cricketers. He is passionate, and fully committed to the game. He has never been affected by the inside politics of the national or international cricket. He works hard on the field, and always positive. He appears confident even when the chances are slim for him or his team. He always performed when the team wanted him to. He is certainly an intelligent cricketer too, of course after MS Dhoni. KP is probably the only person on England side to lead them to the “next level “. Hope England’s native born players will support KP in his task. Hope the Cricket’s answer to David Beckam will be as successful as DB himself.With the fourth test against SA and the New Zealand tour only few days away, I wish KP all the best in his new Job....

Verbal reasoning

The summer holidays in England are almost over. We are busier now than we were when the schools were on. Riya is showing a lot of improvement in Malayalam reading and writing. She is reading small words easily now. Usaully people tend to forget languages easily if we don’t use them. Arabic and Bengali were the languages I was fluent in. Because I have not been using them for long time, most of the words and letters are forgotten now. I am still an official interpreter of Arabic language in my workplace, but I struggle sometimes with Bengali. I will make sure that Riya keeps in touch with Malayalam language on everyday basis. I am so happy that she will be able to enjoy works of great Malayalam writers, especially poems.
Another thing which took my time and attention whole of this school holidays is the eleven plus tests for Riya. Even though she is only nine years old, we have started practicing the eleven plus tests, which she will be writing on 2010 march for the entrance tests for her high school admission in Sept 2010. I am badly stuck on the ‘non verbal reasoning tests’ and ‘verbal reasoning tests’. My brain is under severe stain. Even though I am a little older than an eleven year old J, it is still a bit of a struggle for me to help Riya to do them. Surprisingly, Riya is doing really well with them now, getting less than 5 mistakes out of 50.. She has got two years to practice four papers. I hope she will do well in the tests and get admission in one of our dream schools.
Finally India won a gold in the Olympics. I expected at least a silver from Rathode and a bronze for Dola Banerjee. But that was a disappointment. Thanks and congratulations to Mr.Bindra on his golden achievement. Whole country is proud of you. Also, a very happy independence day to all of you.
That’s all for now.
Time to get back to the ‘verbal reasoning’ test.
Be back soon.

Chak de India!

India is playing the set of five ODIs against Srilanka, starting from tomorrow. After the heavy defeat in the test matches only few days ago, a totally different team of players facing the ODI squad of Srilanka, which is more or less the same team.Srilanka is always very difficult opponents in their home grounds. With the recent streak of winnings and the newly found spinning talent in Mendis, they seem to be the stronger side when bowling department is concerned. Srilankan openers are doing well, with Sanath and Sangakkara in form. Murali and Mendis will be the main threat in the middle overs.India may not play Sehwag because of his ankle injury. Iinstead Virat Kohli will be playing. I was surprised to know that the selectors decided to give him a chance over S.Badrinath of Chennai. Thanks to Sachin’s injury, that now Badrinath is in the team replacing Sachin. I always felt sorry for Badrinath, because even after being the best in the domestic tournaments and scoring tons of runs, he was not selected to the A team for many years. I thought he was very unlucky each time not to get picked up for the national squad. Finally he got his chance and I truly hope he will do well. It is good news from Colombo three days ago that Yuvraj singh scored a century in a warm up match. In the absence of Sehwag and Sachin, it is added responsibility on Yuvraj and his role will be crucial. As usual Irfan Pathan and RP Singh will be leading the pace attack with Harbhajan and Ojha with the spin. I am shocked to see Munaf Patel back in the team and not Sreesanth. But happy that Uthappa and Dinesh karthik are out. Both of them were the luckiest amongst the newcomers to get many chances in the national team than anyone else.I wish Dhoni and his team all the best...