 I'm Katie Groom, I'm a maternal fetal medicine specialist at National Women's Health and I'm a newly appointed associate professor at the Liggins Institute. The reason I chose to work with mothers and babies is if I'm really honest when I was a medical student it was the one thing that really, really excited me. I loved my obstetrics attachment and when I got to the end of my medical school career it was the only thing that I really thought that's the one I want to try out. I really love my clinical job. I'm in a really fortunate position that the job I've got is really fulfilling and one-on-one patient care is fantastic. But over time I've come to learn that actually if I really want to have a bigger impact on the lives of mothers and babies that research really is the opportunity to do that. Hopefully at some point one of our clinical trials will really find a therapy that makes a difference to the lives of mothers and babies and I think that's a unique opportunity and the thing that continues to drive me. I'm absolutely passionate about clinical trials. Well designed clinical trials that answer meaningful questions in maternal and perinatal health. Most recently we've just completed the Strider trial which is a large multi-center trial examining the potential of Sildenafil for the treatment of early onset fetal growth restriction. Sildenafil is actually known as Viagra. This is a drug that has the potential to increase blood supply to the uterus or possibly work by other mechanisms. The hypothesis being that by increasing blood supply to the uterus for a growth-restricted baby may actually increase nutrient supply and help that baby to grow and ideally to stay in utero for longer. Sometimes a clinical trial, particularly a large multi-center clinical trial can be quite daunting for new researchers but I think we have to remember it's a great opportunity for them. There's the opportunity to have some understanding about how these trials work. The time course of the trial sometimes means that they don't see it through to completion but there's potential opportunity for a number of studies within those often answering smaller clinical questions or hypothesis generating questions which can lead on to further research. I think it's really important to train young researchers. They're the future of where we want to go with the research that we're doing. I think there's a lot to learn from our colleagues and more senior people but it's really important that we look at sustainability for the future and developing new ideas. New people bring new ideas. I'm definitely looking for people that are passionate, can do attitude towards things. I guess coming back from an obstetrics and gynecology background I'm really keen to see more academic clinicians in the world of obstetrics but I think there's opportunity across the disciplines within the research that we do. I'd love to think that the research I do does make a difference to the lives of New Zealanders. Of course a lot of that's going to depend on the results of the trials and sometimes we find that the trial's not effective which is not a bad thing because it gives us opportunity to look to new ideas but I hope at some point in my research career I will find something that ends up being a new treatment that's offered widely. Even just on the individual basis when I recruit a woman to a clinical trial she's entering that trial because she's got a problem and I think even just knowing we're doing research gives hope to those women so I think the work that we do within the Liggins Institute is definitely improving lives and certainly giving hope for the future.