Back “For a presentation to be effective it must be very clear and above all must put something across... passion, desire, enthusiasm”

“For a presentation to be effective it must be very clear and above all must put something across... passion, desire, enthusiasm”

Jordi Mill has done his master’s degree final project at the Barcelona Centre for New Medical Technologies during the last year. He presented his results at the STACOM workshop during the 2018 MICCAI Conference and the project was selected and won the award for best oral presentation. 

19.10.2018

 

Jordi Mill has done his master’s degree final project at the Barcelona Centre for New Medical Technologies (BCN MedTech) during the last year, within the framework of the COMPILAAO national project supervised by lecturers Òscar Cámara and Andy Luis Olivares. The results of his master’s degree final project were presented at the STACOM workshop during the MICCAI 2018 conference. His work was selected and won the award for best oral presentation. Jordi will now embark upon his PhD at BCN MedTech, within the UPF doctoral programme in Information and Communication Technologies.

- How did your academic career begin?

I did a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at UPF. In the third year, through the subject Organ and Systems Modelling, I became interested in the world of organ modelling and three-dimensional systems and how they could have a clinical impact. During the summer I did an internship at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, under the supervision of Dr. Abel Gargallo and Dr. Mariano Vázquez. You could say it all started there. That same year the chance arose to go to do my master’s degree final project in London, at King’s College London, under the supervision of Dr. Jack Lee. And now I’m in the Physense group (BCN MedTech), with Dr. Òscar Cámara.

- What made you decide to continue your studies and do a doctorate?

There’s no main reason. It’s a combination of things. I love research, the subject keeps me motivated, and I see that we can have an impact on society when we speak to the doctors. In research, no two days are the same, because results can change everything from one day to the next. It doesn’t let me get into a routine. Moreover, and no less important, is the environment. If you want to do a PhD and have to spend three or four years in one place, you have to feel at ease there. Where I am there is an incredible team of really talented people. I already knew some of them from a few years ago because they were my teachers. It’s a pleasure.

I love research, the subject keeps me motivated, and I see that we can have an impact on society when we speak to the doctors. In research, no two days are the same, because results can change everything from one day to the next. It doesn’t let me get into a routine

- How did your research topic come up?

It all started with a ‘no’. After finishing my degree in London, everything was going great. I was offered the chance to go to New Zealand to do a PhD with a pretty good scholarship. I was all set to go, but the visa papers, certificates, etc., did not come through in time, and the grant had to be awarded right away. So, one August morning I received an email that said no, that they were really sorry but they would look for a native instead of me, due to the fact that the bureaucracy was much quicker and so they would be able to allocate the scholarship.

My immediate reaction was to go to see Òscar Cámara, who had been my tutor during my degree, because I was a bit lost and I didn’t want to get into a rut. I had been left in the lurch. So, he told me he had a project of computational simulations, which was precisely what I had been doing.

“You would do simulations on the left atrial appendage”, he told me (it is a small anatomical structure that we all have in our heart’s left atrium).  ”Sorry, what was that?, about what...?”. I hardly knew what he was talking about. I never would have said that 90% of the blood clots of patients who suffer from atrial fibrillation are formed there.

Part of the oral presentation that discusses Jordi Mill’s research findings at STACOM 2018.

- In heart morphology and dynamics, which are the main contributions of the work that you presented at STACOM?

Most blood clots in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation form in the left atrial appendage (a small, ear-shaped sac in the muscle wall of the left atrium). Its shape varies greatly and its complex morphologies appear to favour the development of blood clots due to blood stasis. However, the relationship between the shape of left atrial appendage and the risk of clotting has not been studied rigorously due to lack of adequate image data and robust tools to characterize their morphology. So far, the “gold standard” had been rather a subjective classification. Depending on the shape of appendage you have, the probability of clotting is higher or lower. All of this without taking into account the haemodynamics within the left atrium or the left atrial appendage when it is known that blood retentions are crucial for the development of a clot.

Our work suggests that such classifications based on morphology alone can oversimplify the problem and, therefore, be insufficient

For example, we presented the case of a patient whose morphological parameters indicated a high likelihood of forming a clot; but when we looked the haemodynamics in the atrium and the atrial appendage, he precisely had the least likelihood, because due to the circulation of the blood inside, there was no stagnation.

- In view of the results, which paths does your research open up?

Not to only look at the morphology but also the haemodynamics to understand and evaluate the blood clotting process. Also to see how computer simulations can help better understand the physiological processes and perform a specific study on each patient.

- How did you approach the winning oral communication, and what do you think oral presentations should be like to be effective?

The audience was quite varied; there were doctors, but also engineers, and many were not specialists in the topic. So, I tried to make the goal very clear and the results very visual. I wanted everyone to be able to understand it without putting in too much effort and, in some way, dare I say, “enjoy it”. Beforehand, I gave my presentation to a friend of mine who studies medicine, and to my father too, who has an engineering background. Neither of them is a specialist in the topic I was presenting and I thought that if they could follow it, it would mean that those present would too. Their feedback was important.

You have to find a way for people to get what you say without making too much of an effort

I think that for a presentation to be effective it must be very clear and above all must put something across... passion, desire, enthusiasm... At these events there are a lot of presentations, and people get tired of listening; it’s normal. You have to find a way for people to get what you say without making too much of an effort. I think that the attitude with which you present and how you present is much more important than the presentation itself, or how nicely it’s embellished. But that’s my personal opinion; I do not consider myself an expert on the subject, not by a long chalk.

So, I tried to make the goal very clear and the results very visual. I wanted everyone to be able to understand it without putting in too much effort and, in some way, dare I say, “enjoy it”

- Who else has participated in the work of which you are the first author?

The work was developed in collaboration with the Arrhythmia Unit in the Cardiology Department of the Centre Cardiovascular d’Aalst (Belgium) and the Cardiology Department at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, who contributed the patients. My other colleagues focused on helping a lot in the morphological part to be able to compare the results with the haemodynamic simulations I had done.

- Had you won or been a finalist in another award before?

Just this year, with another three UPF colleagues (Nil Adell, Joan Puig and Marta Molina) we were finalists of the HealthTech Innovation Challenge 2018, organized by the Centre for Biomedical Engineering Research (CREB) of the UPC, with support from Catalonia Bio, the HealthTech Cluster and ESADE. We presented an app to optimize rehabilitation processes from home. It was another great experience. This is a good example of the ability we have to do things well, even outside of our specialty.

- What would you highlight about your time spent here at UPF?

I, personally, and it’s just my opinion, would highlight, apart from the theoretical knowledge, that indirectly, the bachelor’s degrees teach you a lot about knowing how to adapt to different environments and do things independently. The world of biomedical engineering is very large, the profiles of the students of one generation in Biomedical Engineering are very different and they all have different interests and concerns. And realistically, four years of study in a field like this are not so many. So, thanks to the fact that the degree is shared between the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences and the Department of Information and Communication  Technologies, both of UPF, you can see a bit of everything. Then it must be the student who, through an internship or the master’s degree final project, which have a very important weight, can “specialize” in the field they like most. But if one day you decide to change, you can, thanks to the base that the studies provide, although you will also need to put in your own work to reach the appropriate level.

Thanks to the fact that the degree is shared between the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences and the Department of Information and Communication  Technologies, both of UPF, you can see a bit of everything

- What do you like doing when you’re not working? Do you read? What music do you like?

When I’m not working I try to spend most of my time with my friends and the rest I do sport. I read, and if I had to make a recommendation, I would recommend the books by Joël Dicker (Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair, 2012; The last days of our fathers, 2014). Coldplay, Imagine Dragons and Lukas Graham are always on my playlists.

 

Oral communication of reference: Jordi Mill, Andy Olivares, Etelvino Silva, Ibai Genua, Álvaro Fernández, Ainhoa Aguado, Marta Nuñez, Tom de Potte, Xavier Freixa, Oscar Camara (2018), ”Joint analysis of personalized in-silico haemodynamics and shape descriptors of the left atrial appendage”, STACOM (Statistical Atlases and Computational Modelling of the Heart), workshop, Granada, September 2018. Award for the best oral communication.

 

 

 

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