Breast Compression!!*

This morning I had my three-yearly mammogram as part of the national breast screening programme (OK this may be too much information but hang in there). We are very good at complaining and campaigning when things don’t work but the moment they are working we take them for granted.

The breast screening programme started in 1988 and I have been every three years apart from when there were issues in my area and it was suspended for some months. I have seen it change from taking only one x-ray each side to taking two x-rays each side from two different angles and today the machines were digital so that the radiographer can check the X-ray immediately to see if the quality was OK. It was quick and efficient and, although this is not the most comfortable procedure, it wasn’t that bad.

Of course it is disappointing that about 20 per cent of screening units do not yet have digital mammography and that needs to be urgently addressed. The age range for screening has been extended to 70 (rising to 73 by 2016) but after that it is down to you to ask for it. That does concern me as it is so easy to forget when the last time was and one’s memory doesn’t improve with age. Remember there are two major risk factors – gender and age. The older you are the greater the risk.

I am now part of three screening programmes – the national breast and bowel cancer programmes and also taking part in a trial for ovarian cancer screening. None of this protects you from those cancers (seriously there are some people who think it does) and none of it replaces being aware of your own body and any unusual changes.

*this is what happens when they take the x-ray – you get the picture.....

Is the career structure for scientific research in universities broken?

Thanks to MRC Policy Watch (Medical Research Council) for drawing a Nature opinion piece to our attention. According to the article the career structure for scientific research in universities is broken. It says the science job market has been tight for decades and this has been compounded by the global recession and accompanying austerity measures. It suggests “professionalising” the postdoctoral role; turning it into a career rather than a scientific stepping stone.

The post-doctoral role is something that seems unique to scientific research in the UK. In any other career structure, once you have left university you are launched onto the job market where if you are successful in finding a job it is, at least theoretically, permanent. If you perform well and your employer is financially successful, you will continue to be employed. If not, your services will be dispensed with in the first instance or you will be made redundant in the second. What happens to you then depends on your abilities and the vagaries of the job market.

Not so in scientific research: once you have your PhD (and another story in finding funding for that) you try and find a team or department that has funding to give you your first post. This may well be with what is called soft funding – ie from a charity such as ours. That will last for three years, and during your third year you have to think about applying for the next round of funding. After a few of these, if you are successful you will be leading your own team and employed by the university and thus have tenure where your job is secure. I am not sure that the concept of tenure exists anywhere else.

This process also discriminates against women who have families. If you take a career break to have a family and then get back on the post-doc soft money road show, review boards may turn you down as you will be older than your contemporaries and they may question why you are not leading your own team by now. I am happy to say that in observing our own Scientific Advisory Board that is not the case, but it does happen.

Our scientific fellowship awards are designed to help the talented investigator make that transition from post-doc award to tenure and we hope that by the time they finish their five year fellowship they are in a position to negotiate tenure. But we can only fund one or two of these a year.

In other European countries the situation is somewhat different and there are defined career structures, but they do not have the level of charity funded research that is found in the UK. We know that the UK punches well above its weight in the global academic research community but at what cost?

I wonder how many talented researchers fall by the wayside because of this system. I think that the author of the piece, Jennifer Rohn, makes a case very eloquently but don’t expect the system to change any time soon.

Let them eat cake!

Very exciting news as Breast Cancer Campaign was placed at number 40 on The Sunday Times 100 Best Places to Work in the Public and Charity Sectors list 2011, published yesterday. The charity achieved the fourth highest score (92.9%) for making a positive difference to the world. If you saw the photo you will think that eating cake is an important part of what we do here - and you wouldn’t be far wrong.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and every Friday different teams in the office contribute to the bake-off which is judged at the end of the month. Sadly my baking skills have never come close to matching those of incredibly talented colleagues. Last year the bake-off was won by the Communications team, and the Research team the year before. The competition is intense – but wanting to be the best is the DNA that runs through this organisation.

We want to support the best research and our scientists and our supporters share the credit for achieving the fourth highest score in making a positive difference to the world.

We have also been recognised in the Best Companies Accreditation list for 2011, achieving One Star Status.

We are delighted to have achieved places for the second year running thanks to the hard work of our staff, volunteers, fundraisers and trustees.

I am only sorry that because of The Times pay-wall I can give you a link to the page but you will have to subscribe to see it: http://features.thesundaytimes.co.uk/best100companies/

What 40,000 people are doing this week

New Year resolutions are a distant memory for most of us (OK maybe just me) but for about 40,000 people, training for the Virgin London Marathon (Sunday 17 April) is in full gallop. As someone for whom walking 26 miles in one day was a real challenge a couple of years ago, the thought of running that distance is unthinkable so I am in total admiration of anyone who does it.

Every year we have many volunteers and some staff who take on this challenge and we provide support in a number of ways, and those of us who don’t, won’t or can’t run go along on the day to cheer them along. If you have a place and want to run for us, join the Breast Cancer Campaign All Stars team.

Two of my frustrations in life are that I cannot hold a tune and cannot draw anything – not even well enough to entertain very small grandchildren. It hasn’t stopped me loving music and painting. I haven’t queued for hours for many things but until the art galleries introduced booking online for art exhibitions, queuing to get into an exhibition was one of them. We even travelled to The Netherlands for a weekend in order to see the Vermeer exhibition at The Hague a few years ago. The paintings are small and perfect and it was dreadfully crowded but still worth it. Of course, thanks to Tracy Chevalier who wrote the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring, which became an Oscar-nominated film in 2003, that painting is now familiar to a much wider public.

We are very excited that Tracy will join thousands of runners in the Virgin London Marathon to support us this year. She is running in support of several friends who have been diagnosed with breast cancer in recent years. I think what she has said echoes the views of so many who take on these extraordinary challenges. “At times I have felt helpless in the face of what they have gone through. I decided that running the London Marathon for Breast Cancer Campaign was one concrete way that I could help to raise money and awareness. I’ve never run a marathon before so it will be a big challenge but one that I’m ready for, if it helps others affected by breast cancer.”

I think I will now go back and reread the book and wait for her next one – a novel about an English Quaker woman who helps runaway slaves escape from Ohio to Canada in the 1840s.

Breast cancer is a disease not a punishment

There has been blanket coverage of the publication of new statistics on breast cancer in the UK. There are statistics, interpretation of statistics and news stories and sometimes the latter wins out over the former.

I am always nervous of certainty without evidence. They were certain that the earth was flat, that smoking was harmless and that a radical mastectomy was the only way to treat breast cancer. None of those is true and we have the evidence to prove it.

The facts in this case are that there are more cases of breast cancer being diagnosed now than before – around 48,000; age is still the biggest risk factor for breast cancer – 81 per cent of women diagnosed were 50 and older and more women are surviving longer after treatment.

Increase in the numbers diagnosed is part of a trend and we have some ideas why this might be happening: there has been a partial extension of the screening programme from 50 to 47 and from 70 to 73; the number of women going for screening is going up and we are living longer.

Apart from a genetic predisposition to breast cancer which is between 5 – 10 per cent of all cases there is no identified cause. I use the word cause advisedly because a risk factor is not a cause. There are various risk factors which probably contribute to this and these have been well aired in the media – women are having fewer children and having them later and not all are breastfeeding; increasing levels of obesity and less physical activity and links with regular consumption of alcohol be it binge drinking or a couple of glasses of wine every night.

These are risk factors and while turning into some sort of breeding machine and breast-feeding until pregnant again is not an option - reducing alcohol consumption, increasing exercise and controlling your weight are lifestyle changes you can make (and your overall health will be much better!). None of these in themselves will cause breast cancer but neither are you “protected” if you are teetotal, run marathons and are as slim as a reed.

There are many reasons why survival is improving – screening leading to earlier diagnosis and better treatments (thanks to research done in the past – so keep supporting research!).

I am all in favour of taking responsibility for one’s own actions, one’s own health and one’s own life. But in the end this is a disease not a punishment and we need to understand better why breast cancer happens in the first place (and therefore whether we could prevent it), why it spreads to other parts of the body and why some people respond well to treatment and others don’t. Of course I would say this but research has led to longer survival and less damaging treatments but the need is no less pressing.

The Health and Social Care Bill

This much talked about Bill was published on 19 January. I have not yet braved the 367 pages of the Bill – I might just wait until the explanatory notes are published and then brave the reading. It is a lot to get through and, as always, the devil will be in the detail.

At first glance the word research does crop up from time to time and I am slightly encouraged to see that The National Health Service Commissioning Board has as two of its remits a “duty” to promote innovation and research. I will read further.

I feel a bit like I did about War and Peace (see earlier blog). But now that I have got into the swing of the story I am eagerly awaiting my tube journeys each day so that I can move onto the next chapter.

Perhaps this will be just the same......

Seriously though – we will read, analyse and inwardly digest and you may even see comments here.

If you can’t contain your excitement, you can see it here Health and Social Care Bill.

My electric car is no more....

It is with some sadness that I report the demise of my little electric car. It would have been its fifth birthday this month. Much as I enjoyed using it and could feel smugly “green”, the practicalities eventually ground me down including the requirement for a new battery pack.

Certainly if you wish to drive into central London the economic benefits are very clear – no congestion charge and free parking in Westminster. There is also no road tax and it is in a low insurance group and costs very little to charge. But as I am retiring in the Summer I could not justify the expense.

There are negative consequences about being at the leading edge of technology. Although I believe that the newer models are improved (and hugely more expensive), the range is claimed to be up to 40 miles but it rarely is and certainly is half that during the cold weather and if your journey involves hills. The battery pack is only guaranteed for one year and is hugely expensive to replace. One can make an economic case for doing all that if you are taking advantage of everything I mentioned above but it is no longer justified. I would have had four batteries in five years – one of which was replaced free of charge because the first was faulty – although it took some months to find that out. Additionally, you have only one place to have the car serviced – so no shopping around if you are not pleased.

I am pessimistic about the medium term future of electric cars. There are certainly a number in the pipeline but they are very expensive so very much a rich(er) person’s whim.

So it is back to the Underground which has thankfully been very efficient since the beginning of the year. I am also reading War and Peace. Well not exactly reading – I have never managed to advance beyond a few chapters. I have downloaded an audio version which is exceptionally well read and I am enthralled.