Healthcare Scientific Practitioner
Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust

James G

My name is James G, I’m a Healthcare Scientific Practitioner and I currently work for Royal Berkshire Hospital. My day to day role would be making sure x-rays are performed how they should be. Testing outputs, testing image quality, making sure that the staff and patients aren’t getting more radiation than is expected. Also look at the non ionising, such as lights, lasers, ultrasound.

When I was 16 I left school and knew everything and thought I wanted to be a sound engineer. So I went to college and did music technology as a BTEC, loved it. Did it for two years, loved it but thought just give myself some more credence and give myself a better chance of getting to uni and getting a job so I thought I’d do some A-Levels on top. So I chose to do maths, physics, physiology and computing. In my physics class there was a leaflet that was passed around that was bout fancy getting a degree for free.  I didn’t think it was fair on my father or my family or myself to have to pay for university. So I saw this and thought I’d take it. It was actually at my local hospital and I went for the interview and low and behold I got the job.

So it was a job offered in medical physics for a clinical technologist it was a four year degree with cleared funding, so it was like a modern apprenticeship. So I got my university paid for I got a full wage on top of that, and that’s basically how I got into it I just fell into it by mistake.  It was challenging though, I can’t deny that. The hospital people that I work with are very helpful because they obviously see that it’s beneficial for me to pass, me to qualify, it was worth their time so they gave me all the help that I needed. You don’t realise how much work you actually put in until you look back at your portfolio and realise, wow I did all that. Going from zero knowledge to where I am today, it was a rapid and fun experience.

I enjoyed school as much as people enjoyed school; obviously the social side of school was brilliant. I was a bit of a difficult student, in fact in the last two years the most important years I hardly ever did science, I wasn’t allowed, I was too disruptive to the other students. I still studied, still did it on my own and when it came to GCSEs I got fairly good marks which was quite pleased about. I was surprised and it’s quite funny how I’ve fallen into a job role, a science job role.

I found this role and the learning experience has stretched me and its stretched me, but it’s not stretched me so the other end stays put its stretched me so the other end catches up, it’s a constant sort of, there’s a movement there and it snowballs and snowballs and I want know more and learn more I want to grab and grab and I want to learn more and develop my skills. In terms of career, you don’t start at the bottom you start half way up but then you’ve got no reason why can’t go all the way up and earn the big consultant money.

My dad’s a chartered accountant and they’ve always installed sort of, to go for these professional job roles like doctor, lawyer, without pushing they’ve sort of shown me that if you want to earn money you want a nice house, a car and all the things that go with it you’ve going to have to go for this sort of role. So as soon as I showed him this, I’m going to apply to for this he was more than happy he said yeah that will be good for you. Obviously there’s also all the benefits of working for the government, the NHS where you get good time off, you get 27 days to start with plus the bank holiday, so he was quite happy for me to go for it at that point.

I’m currently participating and competing in body building events. So back in 2009 I went to the NAC Mr Universe and represented Great Britain there. Since moving to Reading and working for the Royal Berks, life been good I can’t complain. They’re pushing me to go further and get me state registration, everything’s all go, I’ve got future plans, life’s pretty good, I can’t complain.