Championing a ‘People Era’ in heart failure research

 

 

By Dr Alyson Huntley, Senior Research Fellow in Evidence Synthesis, Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol

World Heart Day on 29 September 2022 aims to inform people that cardiovascular disease, including heart failure and stroke, is the world’s leading cause of death, claiming 18.6 million lives each year. It also aims to highlight the actions that individuals can take to prevent and control heart disease. Alyson Huntley describes how researchers at the Centre for Academic Primary Care are refocusing priorities to ensure that the needs of people living with heart failure are at the centre of their work.

We aim to put people with heart failure at the centre of our research. A recent collaborative project with other universities highlighted the unmet needs of people living with heart failure. The priority setting process brought clinicians, patients and families/carers together on an equal footing to … Read more

My experience as an NIHR School for Primary Care Research intern: reflections from an anthropology student

Scarlett Whitford Webb

 

 

by Scarlett Whitford Webb, Anthropology Student, University of Bristol

As a student usually peering at fossils of primordial apes, I was surprised to receive an email advertising two paid summer internships in primary care research. The email emphasised that both internships were accepting of students from a variety of disciplines (including geography, biology, sociology, and social policy) in addition to medicine. Experience in qualitative research was required for both projects, but as I (like many others), was already carrying out research for my dissertation, the internship felt tailor-made for a third-year anthropologist wishing to step into the medical world. After reading the email, I hastily applied to one of the projects. A few weeks later, I was interviewed and hired by my project supervisor. After the interview, I learned that 24 students applied for the project, and that seven were shortlisted for interview.

My involvement in the

Read more

Wakey! Evaluating the feasibility of a mental wellbeing app

Dr Sophie Turnbull

 

 

By Sophie Turnbull, Senior Research Associate, Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol

I have an ongoing interest in how industry and academia can work together to produce really good evidence-led products that can be accessible for the target users, and have more longevity than those produced in purely academic settings.

From experience, when we produce digital interventions in our academic bubble, they are brilliantly researched, but often not maintained in the long-term, meaning they disappear soon after the research funding stops. Or we do not have enough budget to develop something that people are going to want to use.

While exploring how academia and industry can come together to reduce inequalities in access to good quality healthcare, I discovered ZINC. ZINC runs mission-led programmes with people from across disciplines to build commercial solutions to solve some of the most pressing societal issues. I … Read more

CAPC Festival of Teaching

 

 

by Dr Simon Thornton, GP and GP Engagement Lead, Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol and Professor Trevor Thompson, GP and Head of Primary Care Teaching, Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol

The Centre for Academic Primary Care (CAPC) at the University of Bristol is a leading centre for primary care teaching and research based in Bristol Medical School. In April 2022, we held an inaugural Festival of Teaching at Bristol Zoo, to celebrate the skill and commitment of GP teachers, who are helping develop the primary care workforce of the future.

The day started with an introduction to teaching for the coming (2022/23) academic year from the teaching team. If you’re interested in teaching medical students and haven’t seen it already, do take a look at our Teaching Brochure that gives you all the information you need about teaching … Read more

Lessons from lockdown: NHS general practice changes and public perceptions

 

by Dr Lorna Duncan, Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol

 

How did England’s National Health Service (NHS) change at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Dr Lorna Duncan and Kelly Cheng wrote two companion pieces for F1000Research, exploring how the NHS modified general practice (GP) consultations to minimize the spread of COVID-19 and what the public thought about those changes. F1000Research spoke to Dr. Duncan about what they discovered and the potential implications for primary care. You can read the full blog on their website.… Read more

‘Our First Year Heard’ – curating the experiences of first-year medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic

 

 

By Louis Davenport, Medical Student, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol

My name is Louis Davenport, and I am a second-year medical student at the University of Bristol. I am the organiser of ‘Our First Year Heard’, a student art collection showcasing the effects of COVID-19 on first-year medical students.

The seed of the idea came from an extremely intense, one might say uncomfortable, experience that I had in the dissection room in my first year at medical school. While I am not particularly artistic myself, I made use of poetry to help process the experience and wrote several drafts of what would become What’s in front of you. From there I thought, why not collect the experiences of first-year medical students who might similarly wish to share them with other medical students and the wider public? Capturing the unique experiences of people who … Read more

Opening opportunities for GP trainees and allied health professionals to get into research: the PACT ‘Why test?’ study

 

 

by Dr Jessica Watson, NIHR Clinical Lecturer in General Practice, Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol

Have you ever found yourself looking at blood test results and wondered why the test was done in the first place?

Why Test? – It seems like a simple question. Yet despite increasing access to research databases such as Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), which contain millions of test results, there is no easy way to find out why these tests are being performed in the first place. How many are for monitoring, screening or diagnosis? Which symptoms trigger testing? To explore this, we are launching the Why Test study using the Primary Care Academic CollaboraTive (PACT).

Currently, only a tiny proportion of primary care clinicians have a formal academic contract with a University. PACT aims to open up opportunities for non-academic primary care clinicians to get … Read more

Developing academic writing skills for researchers with English as a second language

 

 

by Beatriz Kalichman, Researcher, University of São Paulo, Brazil and Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol, UK

Beatriz Kalichman, an early career researcher (ECR) on the Healthcare Responding to Violence and Abuse (HERA) international research project at the University of São Paulo and, honorarily, at the Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol, reflects on the National Institute for Health Research (NIIHR)-funded writing workshop, ‘Writing for Global Health: developing academics of the future’, in Summer 2021. The workshop was co-developed by ECRs and delivered by the University of Bristol’s Centre for Academic Language and Development.

Academic English writing is very important for career progression and was identified as an issue that ECRs on the HERA project who don’t have English as a first language wanted to work on. HERA, funded by the Medical Research Council Global Challenges Research Fund and NIHR Global Health … Read more

Twists, turns and persistence: my path from nursing to research

by Dr Cindy Mann, Research Fellow, Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol

Cindy Mann, a former nurse and now Research Fellow at the Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol, shares the twists and turns in her career, and encourages nurse colleagues to consider research as a future path and not be put off by setbacks.

A long and varied career

I have had a long career, starting in 1975, when I did my nurse training at Leeds General Infirmary. In 1977 I got married and after completing training followed my husband to Oxford where I took a job as a staff nurse at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. I then decided to do a Philosophy degree in Oxford, and really enjoyed the peace and quiet of working in a library, in contrast to ongoing shifts for the nurse bank. In the following years, up … Read more