Clinical Bioinformatics: What does that even mean?

We’ve all met new people where the first question is, “So what do you do?”. When I reply, I usually get a blank face in response. How do you explain it in plain words? I usually say we are the people in between biology and computer science and it does the trick. Otherwise, you have to explain what is DNA, what is DNA sequencing, what is a mutation, things that are “coded” in us. What is the usual jargon to us might be someone else’s rocket science.

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What is the STP?

As there’s a chance that some of you are unfamiliar with the programme we are on, here’s a brief introduction.

The Scientist Training Programme or STP as we call it, is a training programme organised by the National School of Healthcare Science and NHS Health Education England with the aim to train the country’s clinical scientist workforce. At the moment, there are 23 specialisms offered by the programme. The training is undertaken in the span of three years and it consists of 80% on-the-job training and a 20% academic component.

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STP Reflections | Year 1 | Jes

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I’m sat writing this on a Sunday night; the Sunday night before I start my 50th week in training to be a clinical bioinformatician. 50 weeks sounds like a long time – and it is. And I’ve learnt so much, both technically and professionally. So, with almost 1/3 of my training down, I thought now would be a good time to reflect on this time and share a brief overview of my journey so far.

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We started a book club!

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Yes- we started a STP bioinformatics book club! Our lovely colleague Chris suggested the idea as a way to encourage us to read books around related topics that won’t be directly covered in our teaching.

Our first book is “Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions” by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. We are planning on discussing it when we meet in Manchester in November, which gives us plenty of time, and we would love it if you want to read it too and tweet us your opinions!

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Welcome to STP Perspectives!

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Welcome to STP perspectives, a blog run by trainee clinical scientists undertaking the NSHCS’s Scientist Training Programme.

We are a group of soon-to-be clinical scientists training towards becoming fully-fledged Clinical Bioinformaticians in Genomics. As we approach the end of the first year of our training, we want to share our journey so far, what we are currently up to and things we find interesting.

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