How I decided to be a Health Economist? Since I was a child I wanted to be a clinical doctor, but as it happens, I ended up doing Economics. No, don’t ask me why, it’s a long story!

It was only during my last year of BSc that I discovered Health Economics. I didn’t even know such a subject existed, but I immediately fell in love: economics applied to health care! Two months after graduation I started an MSc in Health Economics and during my internship I looked into variability of clinical practice: a fascinating subject, understanding why women living only few miles from each others can have a different probability of undergoing an hysterectomy.

Academic research was so attractive that I started a PhD in Economics and Management, spending one year at the University of York to learn from the main experts in Economic Evaluation. Before completing my PhD I got a job offer from Imperial College and I moved to London to start my career as Health Economist.

In 2014 I moved to University College London, where I am Principal Research Fellow at the Department of Applied Health Research. In my role I provide health economics expertise to real world evaluation of health care interventions and health policies in the fields of stroke, cancer and mental health. I am co-investigator in several RCTs and funded research projects. My unique passion for medicine allows me to apply my economics knowledge to a variety of challenges in health care sector.

For me teaching is a vocation, I simply love it. I teach Health Economics, Pharmaco-economics and HTA at undergraduate and postgraduate level both in the UK and internationally and I supervise MSc and PhD students.

I never managed to become a clinical doctor, and despite being a certified first aider, I don’t save lives in a hospital, but I can tell decision makers how resources can be used, so that clinicians can offer the best treatments to patients and save as many lives as possible.