| Description | Professor ALISON MURRAY interview on Monday November 21, 2022. Interviewer Eric Crockart. Summary by Eric Crockart.
(0:00:00) ALISON DOROTHY MURRAY, born in Aberdeen on 30 November 1962. Retired at end of May 2020, then holding position of Professor of Radiology at the University of Aberdeen. Explains this involved half her time with university and half with NHS. Educated at Walker Dam Infant School and then Hazlehead Primary School and then Hazlehead Academy (all in Aberdeen). Then went to University of Aberdeen and studied Medicine. Explains in detail why medicine. Started studying medicine in 1980, graduated 1985. Describes life as a medical student. Lecturers were very varied, Dr Margaret Bruce, an anatomy lecturer, was quite inspirational. Contact with first patient happened after Easter in second year. Recalls meeting patients both on wards and in the community, remembers going to Inverurie for early general practice teaching. Remembers in final year going to Radiology Dept to see an ultrasound being carried out by Tony Bayliss, really impressed. (0:04:55) Path to Radiology as a career, remembers as a student having a lecture on MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) in the early 1980s when it was very new, only developed in 1979, Aberdeen fundamental role in that. One of those involved gave them a lecture on MRI, thought image of brain scan was amazing. Explains advantages of MRI, inspirational. (0:06:15) Starts talking about lead up to becoming a consultant radiologist in 1995; (false start, adjustment of microphones); started training in hospital medicine in Aberdeen, then moved to Glasgow, explains. Then moved back to Aberdeen, partly for family reasons, to take up post as Senior Registrar in Radiology in 1991, explains after that training became a consultant in 1995. Explains what Radiology was like in Aberdeen at that time. Aberdeen always been a bit ahead of the curve, radiology was no exception, explains in details limitations at that time. Tony Bayliss mentioned again, revolutionised what was available in ultrasound for patients both for diagnosis and intervening. Other person appointed on the same day as Tony Bayliss was Jamie Weir, skilled at echo-cardiography, trained in Sweden, he also brought expertise in CT (Computer Tomography) to Aberdeen. Speaks of what she learned as a Senior Registrar, including with Sandy MacDonald [later added during correction process: Alexander F MacDonald, Sandy, fondly referred to by his team as AMcD] the neuro radiologist in Aberdeen. Pays tribute to him, main inspiration in her going on to do radiology as a career. (0:11:11) Describes Radiology in Aberdeen in those days, compared with now. Less busy, less things you could scan, but still really innovative. Talks of Lewis Gillanders, really innovative radiologist, introduced "Foresterhill Units" used by everybody in the UK, explains. Leader in radiology education, explains. Felt part of a team effort, as on call senior registrar did most things, talks about experience of dealing with particular patient. Recalls phoning for advice from Ron Mahaffy the vascular and interventional radiologist, recounts what happened. (0:14:36) Talks about changes in what she did on becoming a consultant. Recounts a typical day as a new consultant radiologist. Not keen on barium enemas! Explains why. Moved to academic post, became clinical senior lecturer with Fiona Gilbert, the new Professor of Radiology, really enjoyable. Explains about vetting requests from other doctors, and problems this can involve for the radiologist. Explains change to what she was doing when she became clinical senior lecturer in 1996. Theoretically should be 50% of time for NHS and 50% for university. But when she started was 60% of her time for NHS. Very quickly given large administrative role by the university, head of medical admissions, explains. (0:20:13) Talks in detail about typical day as a clinical academic. Grant applications. University didn’t usually understand you could not always do everything because you had NHS commitments, patient comes first. Output from research should always be to provide new knowledge that ultimately improves patient care. Got better at dividing her time, but priority would always be the clinical work. Often meant university work pushed into evenings and weekends, talks of impact on family. Alison only managed to work full time as a clinical academic by employing help, explains, more of an issue for her because she was a woman. As working mother never feel you do the parenting or the job properly. Goes on to explain women in medicine and academia make good role models, hopes she has been this to her three daughters. (0:25:33) Next stage of career, personal chair in Radiology for a short time in 2012, internal appointment. Explains Prof Fiona Gilbert had moved to Cambridge University, chair vacant, searched for new professor, challenging to attract people to jobs in Aberdeen sometimes, explains. So Alison applied for the role, and was appointed in August 2012 as Roland Sutton Professor of Radiology - explains story behind that title. In her new role she was also head of the Aberdeen biomedical imaging centre, explains in detail about this, including John Mallard. Talks about how she managed the two roles, you appoint excellent admin staff, fortunate that Fiona Gilbert already had an excellent administrator, Teresa Morris, who is still the imaging facilities manager in the centre. She and the Secretary Dawn Younie ran my life! (0:30:50) Talks about how the work of John Mallard (and others) in developing MRI biomedical imaging absolutely transformed her speciality of radiology. Explains how the first whole body MRI scanner was developed in Aberdeen in 1979, scanned first patient in 1980. Did not involve ionising radiation - explains about significance of this, can do harm. Could see difference between grey and white matter in the brain, also scans in different planes. Talks about how she saw that technology develop from the Mark Two scanner when she came back to Aberdeen in 1991. Eventually replaced by commercial scanner in 1992, inspirational move by the Scottish government to fund five of these expensive scanners across Scotland. Talks about other kinds of scanners, explains in detail about what they involve - PET (Positron Emission Tomography), CT (Computer Tomography). Aberdeen never commercially produced an MRI scanner, John Mallard tried but unsuccessful, so large companies took over. (0:36:36) Explores her research work and achievements, big focus of her efforts. Explains she was really interested in the brain, and what happens to it as we get older, dementia. Need to study normal brain ageing before studying abnormal brain ageing. Talks about significance of the Aberdeen Birth Cohorts, work started in late 1980s with Prof Lawrence Whalley who was prof of Mental Health at the time. Started with Aberdeen Birth Cohort of 1921, explains they were recruited into a study in their 60s, 70s and 80s. Prof Whalley was keen to get someone to image their brains, Alison was that person, explains what this involved, no funding. From that learned quite a lot, about normal variation in brains, as well as risk factors. Explains why she was interested in brains. Mentions spending time with Donald Hadley, radiologist in Glasgow. Fascinated you could see so much from a scan that you couldn’t tell from the person sitting in front of you, explains implications for that person as they aged. Explains about dementia, commonest cause is Alzheimer’s Disease, but not only cause. (0:42:07) Her work in this area, significance, explains still struggling to get treatments for dementia, but made difference in diagnoses. Recounts in detail about one patient, author Terry Pratchett, coming to Aberdeen to get a scan for his particular form of dementia, had been given wrong diagnosis. Came to Aberdeen to get correct diagnosis, came to see (Professor) Claude Wischik who has done heroic work trying to understand Alzheimer’s Disease and trying to develop drugs to tackle the Tau Pathology. Explains in more detail about the Tau drug treatment, and why Terry Pratchett was led by this to Aberdeen, to get Claude’s opinion. Explains in detail about Tau drug programme. Reaction of Terry Pratchett to his diagnosis, knew he had dementia, made TV series about it, Alison had chance to meet him and explain the scans he had had. A bit daunting to be filmed in your day job, but Alison feels she and her colleagues rose to the occasion. (0:48:06) Aberdeen offering unique treatment at that time, no other Tau therapies available, promising results but not enough to be conclusive, further clinical trials. Aberdeen leading the way, more evaluation needed. Speaks about varied relationship a radiologist has with patients, on the whole not much! So unusual for a patient to be shown a brain scan and be talked through it by a radiologist, Terry Pratchett was an exception for the TV programme. Talks about when radiologist will be sitting beside patient during ultrasound examination, also if doing interventional radiology, explains. Recalls a particular traumatic case of an offshore worker who came in with a crush injury. (0:51:40) Talks about work she has done with the 1936 Birth Cohort and also the Children of the 50s cohort. Scanned more of the 1936 cohort, but ones she was really interested in were the Children of the 1950s, because so many more of them, fascinating. A subset took part in a large Scottish-wide project called Generation Scotland. Academic colleague in Edinburgh, (Professor) Andrew McIntosh got large grant to study cohorts across Scotland, large scale study we started in 2015 up to 2018, collecting data. Explains in detail what this involved. Included participants spending an hour in an MRI scanner. Data continuing to be analysed by researchers throughout Scotland, many research papers have come out. Epigenetics, explains how this can affect how you age. (0:55:50) Talks about how Aberdeen has real skill in collecting long term databases, explains in addition to the Aberdeen Cohorts also Aberdeen Maternal and Neo Natal data bank continues to be analysed by researchers across Scotland. All now under auspices of the Aberdeen Centre for Health Data Sciences, scientists there highly skilled at looking at data. Aberdeen has a great role to play in future, Foresterhill site has higher density of biomedical researchers than many places in the world. Hospital next door provides test bed for researchers, explains. Also great nutritional expertise in the Rowett (Institute). Fantastic place to do research. Talks about Aberdeen having a little difficulty (in attracting academics) not just because of the geography, but because oil industry was so successful, made it difficult for those outside that industry to buy a house in Aberdeen. Talks of where Aberdeen goes on from here as a research centre. Imaging research safe, before she retired handed over directorship of Aberdeen Biomedical Imaging Centre to her colleague Gordon Waiter, a medical physicist and computational neuro imager, explains. Talks about her work with SINAPSE (Scottish Imaging Network and Platform for Scientific Excellence). Instigated by Joanna Wardlaw from Edinburgh University, Donald Hadley, one of her mentors from Glasgow University, and herself in Aberdeen. Explains that as individual centres were struggling to attract and fund expertise needed to do some of the more complex brain-imaging studies, network allowed them to operate more effectively. Scottish Funding Council told them to get together with another group of universities who had proposed their own imaging project. Result was SINAPSE, share expertise across Scotland in advanced imaging. Explains how it works, strong, multi disciplinary, formed a PhD graduate school. (1:02:19) Talks of why she retired in 2020. Has multiple sclerosis, did not feel she was able to fulfil being a university professor. Became president of the Aberdeen Medico Chirurgical Society post retirement. Talks about the society. Not completely retired, still active with iCAIRD (Industrial Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research in Digital Diagnosis), explains in detail about areas of diagnosis where AI can be applied, talks about Aberdeen’s contribution looking at AI being applied in breast screening mammograms - involves two radiologists at the moment, expensive, much cheaper if you can replace one with AI system. Talks of other areas where humans don’t perform well. Acute stroke also being looked at for quick decisions about clot-busting drugs. Any programme of work not worth its salt if you don’t come up with new ideas, have young colleagues like Rosie Mitchell-Hay looking at applying AI in other tricky areas like MRI and rectal cancer. Can you get rid of radiologists and replace them all with machines? Thinks answer is no, machines there in supportive role. Talks of importance of how these machine programmes are trained. Raises interesting questions about who is responsible if things go wrong, explains. (ENDS 1:09:06)
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