Gavin
Gavin is a podiatry researcher. He carefully splits his time between clinical work and undertaking a PhD. He sees his PhD as a process of developing research skills which he can then utilise in his own profession, thus building podiatry’s research capacity.
Gavin is a podiatry researcher. He currently splits his time two days a week clinically in the NHS and three days a week completing a PhD. For Gavin, the move into research was about contributing to a research culture, knowledge generation and career development. He has been interested in research since qualifying 20 years ago, stemming from a sense that much of the podiatry curriculum lacked an evidence base. He completed a Master’s and, over time, developed an interest in podiatry practices around fall prevention for older people. He came across research conducted in Australia, and was keen to explore the relevance for the Scottish context. The funding was awarded and allowed Gavin to conduct a small pilot randomised controlled trial (RCT) for two days a week out of his clinical post over two years. This experience was challenging but rewarding, and Gavin went on to be a successful applicant for a PhD fellowship.
Gavin’s experiences span various aspects of research activities. After securing funding and ethics approval for the pilot RCT, he: consented participants; delivered the intervention; collected and analysed data (including tests and validated questionnaires); and conducted qualitative interviews with participants to evaluate acceptability of the trial after first shadowing a qualitative researcher. Gavin has had access to a lot of training through his PhD fellowship but, before this, it was a case of learning by doing. He networked widely and found that, on the whole, the academics he approached were very generous in sharing their experiences. Working with a clinical trials unit gave him a little flavour of all the little bits of things you have to do on a randomised controlled trial. Gavin thinks he has been fortunate with good mentorship and support from academic colleagues.
The pilot RCT involved care homes and elderly participants, and Gavin faced a number of challenges. For example, he re-consented participants with every study visit and some could no longer participate in the study when their cognition declined. Although Gavin had clinical experiences of elderly populations, he highlighted that consent for research is quite different. He had completed Good Clinical Practice training but felt strongly that nothing really prepares you for sitting down in front of cognitively impaired older person [and] a) assessing their capacity to consent, and then b) running through the actual patient information sheet with them. Gavin felt more comfortable over time and looked back on the experience as teaching him that research is messy, and you spend a lot of time dealing with uncertainty and solving problems.
As encouraged by the funders, Gavin has used his PhD as a vehicle to learn many different research skills and develop a set of skills that [are] going to be incredibly useful to building up the evidence base for my own profession. His PhD supervisors have different health professional backgrounds to his own. He highlights that having clinical podiatry experience allows you to develop clinically relevant questions.
Gavin tries to compartmentalise and essentially treat the PhD like a job he occasionally works on evenings and weekends but it’s challenging with a young family. He tries to keep clear boundaries between his clinical and research split. When Gavin previously tried to combine them within the same days and location, he found that you end up doing neither of them very well. Gavin strongly recommends that where you do your research is not where you do your clinic. When he was carrying out the pilot RCT, Gavin would sometimes do a half day clinical and half day research; being in uniform and doing computer work in the clinic office meant that colleagues and patients sometimes didn’t realise he was busy. Although Gavin mostly keeps his clinical and PhD jobs separate, there is sometimes a bit of crossover and his colleagues come to him for advice about how to use research.
Gavin recommends that other podiatrists thinking of pursuing a research career complete a Master’s degree, network with others (within and beyond podiatry, and geographically local), and identify funding sources to adequately support research.