Shelley Wood joined theheart.org as a medical journalist in 2000, after completing her Masters in Journalism degree at the University of British Columbia, specializing in health reporting. She became the managing editor of heartwire in January 2009.

Shelley was born and bred in Vancouver, BC and studied at McGill University in Montreal and the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She has worked as a medical writer at St Paul's Hospital in Vancouver and as a freelance journalist, publishing book chapters and articles on everything from autopsy rates to electrophysiology, methadone to plastic surgery.

In June 2009, Shelley was awarded the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Print Journalism Award in the trade-publication category. She lives halfway between the Coastal and Rocky mountain ranges, in Kelowna, BC.

You can follow Shelley and the other award-winning heartwire journalists on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/theheartorg.