Mary has worked in research for 20 years. She is currently employed as a researcher and trial manager at a university for four days a week, where she works on research around improving access to antenatal care. She also works as a health visitor one day a week. Mary trained and worked as a health visitor before starting a job for a genetic condition charity; it was here that she was initially inspired to pursue research: I was aware, in that role, how little evidence there was on all kinds of things that the public wanted to know [‚] I became increasingly interested in [‚] being the person who maybe sort of sought those answers. Following this, Mary completed a Master’s degree in medical sociology and took on a research nursing post. However, she wanted to combine research and health visiting, and found a job as a research health visitor. Mary has worked in both research and clinical posts since then, but currently enjoys the balance and variety of her two roles: I really like the combination because it gives me a unique edge.

Mary’s first research post was as a research nurse. She recalled being na‚Äö√†√∂‚àö√≤ve about what to expect: I don’t think I had any idea where it was gonna lead. I just thought I’ve got to do this. In this role, she worked on recruitment for a cancer trial, but had very little involvement in other aspects of the research process. She went on to be employed as a research health visitor delivering an intervention in a trial and enjoyed returning to being closer to health visiting. Compared to the caseload in clinical practice, Mary liked that the research role gave her more time to interact with participants. Adapting to research posts was a steep learning curve. She had to become familiar with the terminology used as well as undertake training on different aspects of research, including research methods and safeguarding when the context was not a standard clinical role. Mary found her research group to be very inclusive, which made the transition into this role easier: there was never that feeling of them and us. Mary values the qualitative focus of her research unit, and has enjoyed working with her chief investigator.

Since working in research, Mary has worked on multiple studies around motherhood. Currently, Mary is involved in feasibility and piloting work around an intervention using group antenatal care to improve women’s experiences, including giving them continuity of midwifery care. In her research role, building relationships is key, with everyone from data analysts to participants: it’s about respecting [‚] the different pressures on people, and being able to assess-, read people and assess situations quickly. Since her health visitor contract has been taken over by a private enterprise, Mary questions her future in her current clinical role. However, financially and practically, she feels finding another part-time health visitor post would be difficult. Mary sees several directions of where her career could take her next. Alongside her research post, she has considered options including teaching or taking on a practitioner role specifically around women’s health. Mary hopes to stay in research for the coming years, at least for the duration of the studies she is working on. She would like to integrate research on health visiting into her current research intervention.

Mary feels that there is still a negative, or at least ill-informed, image around health visiting. At the same time, practitioners are often sceptical about the real value of research. Because of this, Mary finds it useful to tell clinical colleagues or other staff she works with about her background. This can help counter perceptions that researchers don’t understand the world of practice, they don’t understand how hard it is to change things [‚] That’s why I tell people in the hope that they see that I’m not a deluded academic who doesn’t understand, I do understand. However, Mary also makes sure to keep her research and practitioner roles separate. She doesn’t usually tell participants in her studies that she is a health visitor because it’s too easy for them to say, [‚] Would you mind just looking at my baby’s rash?’ [‚] I didn’t want to be in that position at all.

Mary feels that funding for research in health visiting has been slower to develop than in other areas such as research midwifery. She thinks this is partly because people don’t have the same understanding of the health visiting role and owing to difficulties in measuring health visiting outcomes as these are usually much more long term. Although research is encouraged amongst student health visitors, in practice there is often little/no support for having a research component to your role. However, Mary believes that there will be more trials around health visiting interventions in the future. She recommends that health visitors considering a research career should take advantage of the support structures that are increasingly in place and opportunities for mentoring.