And then I suppose that’s one of the appeals of research, isn’t it, is that there is the certain flexibility that you get, in that environment which I would never have got in, in physio. And things like, I don’t know, having to, you know. Hospital appointments or doctors appointments, that kind of thing, it’s much easier to flex around that. Whereas when I was physioing, there was no way I’d be able to sort of – I’d have to take annual leave to go to sort of appointments, or whatever.

So, there was that sort of side of things. Which was quite a, quite a big plus. Though I do feel like research will sort of tend to move in the direction of being more 24/7. And I don’t, I can’t foresee a time where we’ll be asked to do night shifts or anything like that, but even now they’re starting to trial weekend working. And occasionally we are expected – or not expected, but a study will demand that we do need to sort of skew our hours a little bit. And you know, that’s fine. I, you know, I don’t have any problem with doing a ten to six shift, or you know, staying later when we need to or whatever. So I think- And I think probably that’s a right, you know, the right thing to do, in terms of flexibility does need to go both ways, doesn’t it. That as an employee, if you’re asking if you can flex your time to sort of accommodate sort of your life stuff, then perhaps it’s right that it’s the other way round as well. And that you know, equally you can be flexible to cover the studies when they need to be covered, and yeah. So I think it’s probably a changing, changing environment, in terms of research. We’ll no longer be the sort of you know, eight to four sort of pattern, and no extra hours.

I think there’s a lot of focus isn’t there, at the minute, on clinical-academic careers, and. And sort of providing infrastructure for non-medics. In that the medics have had those sort of structures in place for a while. And non-medics really struggle with that. And I think, I think- And I think there’s a bit of a disconnect between- And I’m talking sort of Trust level now. Between sort of director level, there’s a lot of chat about you know, clinical academic careers, and we need to support this as a Trust, and we need to see, you know, this needs to be supported by the Trust, and this is going to help put us on the map, and this is going to help us build our relationships with university, and this is going to help us promote our sort of university hospital name, and we want to be seen as a centre of excellence for a clinical academic career, and this is hopefully what’s going to draw people to us. And help us from an employment point of view, and a recruitment kind of retention point of view. And, and will also ultimately help us you know, develop leading researchers, and which will then generate income for the Trust. So I think they are looking at it over a much sort of a longer term plan. But to try and then get your middle managers to try and tap into that vision, and- And I guess understand how on earth they can deliver that is much more difficult. You know, certainly for- And I guess this is one other reason why I left clinical, is that the direction that I wanted to go in was really pulling against what they wanted from me as a clinical physio.

That they just couldn’t support me, in fostering these other interests. That they just needed me to come in and see patients. And I get- And I get why they needed that, and I understand the pressures that they were under to deliver a clinical service. And I think that was probably why I then in the end ended up leaving, because I just felt ‘you know what, there’s a whole team here that are going to support me in what I want to do, and you aren’t able to do that. But in terms of developing a clinical academic pathway, we need to overcome that somehow, and I don’t know how we do that. You know, you look at- Perhaps the medical model is the right way to do it, in that, you know, they have posts don’t they, that are certain grades that they go for. And some are pure clinical, and come are combined clinical and research. And you can apply for what pathway you want to, but the pathways exist. And it’s kind of built into that role. But it’s trying to get someone to fund that, and fund the research time that’s attached to clinical time. Because I think that’s probably the only way you’re going to get clinical teams to be able to, to cope with- You can’t suddenly give everybody you know, half time study leave. You can do that, on the funding that’s currently available. So it probably does come down to money.

And the same for my, when I was applying for my PhD. I was being asked from my physio managers to leave my job, to then go and do this PhD. You know, if I’d got that funding, that was what they were negotiating. You know, they weren’t prepared to hold my job open while I went off and did my PhD, to then come back from my PhD. So I was then left in the position where I was discussing with the research department – I don’t want to go and do a PhD, even though you know, an amazing opportunity, and you know, all your training’s paid for, all your travel’s paid for, your course, everything is paid for. And your salary is matched, and all of that. I don’t, I don’t- I’m not prepared really to step away for three years, to then not have anything at the end of it. Like I need you to guarantee me that there will be a role for me at the end of this. And obviously we never actually got to the point of having to make a final decision. But certainly the initial chats we were having was that they would do that, because they could understand that position.

And certainly people that had gone through before me, had had their posts held open. So I think their plan was to go back to the sort of therapies department and say, ‘look, we have precedent for this, people have done this before, and posts have been held open. You know, ‘realistically, you will be able to place her in three years time somewhere – yes, not in her current role. And I think that was the way the conversations were going to go.

I think it depends on the study. I think-, I’m sure probably most people find this, that if you’ve got a CI [Chief Investigator] on site you tend to have much-, it’s a much more sort of two-way, probably much more frequent conversation isn’t it, about what’s going on, and what’s happening. And if you’re a site delivering someone else’s study, it’s probably less so. Because you’re just, just much more remote aren’t you, from that I think. And I think it, I think it depends on the, on the CI, as well. And, and the site. You know, I’ve certainly had studies where you feel much more engaged, you know, the CI often checks in with you, or checks in with the site. He’s, How are you going?, and sending newsletters, gives you updates. And that’s quite- it’s quite motivating. Whereas I’ve had some studies, you’re literally given the information to start up, and then check back in in a year’s time, and- It feels quite disengaging, I think, from a research delivery team point of view. It feels like you’ve been forgotten about. Which I’m sure isn’t the case.

But I quite- I find it- I find it a better experience if they are the types that engage with you as you sort of go along.

I remember saying like ‘I really want to take this job and this is really what I want to do, but I just – I can’t leave a substantive role, to move across for six months, because it will fly by, you know, I’ve almost got to start looking for a new job, or some kind of back-up plan or something straight away, and as much as you can sit there and tell me I’m sure your contract would be renewed, I’m running the risk of it not being renewed, and then what do I do. And suddenly I’ve left a profession – not a profession, I’ve left a pathway or a clinical job that you know, I could, that is substantive and I could carry on for years, for- And then it did kind of feel like I’m trying this out, I don’t necessarily know for sure that this would be what I like, to then step into a role that I’m only going to have for six months and you know, I can’t – I felt like I couldn’t really afford to do it.

I couldn’t really afford to take that risk. And I felt the same with a year. Because although it’s clearly twice as long as six months, it’s still, it would still fly by. And I think you’d still have to sort of go into that job almost sort of thinking ‘right, what is my back-up plan, and where am I going to go in a year. And I just didn’t want that kind of pressure. And I kind of- I think I kind of knew that if I kept, if I kept bargaining that I’d probably get what I want. Or, and if I didn’t, I think I was happier to stay in a clinical role that I still enjoyed, as I said to you, on a substantive contract. Rather than take the risk, and make the move to move into a research role.

And then luckily, I suppose, or eventually they were like ‘fine, we’ll just give you a substantive.

In critical care, we screen everybody every day for, you know, the number of studies that we have. Surgical patients tend to be a bit more difficult, in terms of you know, trying to- It sounds crazy but they still make paper lists for surgical patients. Which is just baffling to me, why it’s not done electronically on an electronic system. But literally, the surgeon will make a paper list and hand it to the booking clerk, who then books all these patients. So we have to sort of somehow get hold of a list, so that we can then screen for patients. So, that’s been a bit of a, a nightmare. Emergency patients are weirdly easier to find out about than the elective. Which to my mind is just a bit crazy, but anyway. So yeah, so we’ll come up with a system of, of screening patients and making sure that we’re not missing patients. And then we’ll approach.

And then I got the opportunity to do what they call a fellowship year. So I did apply for the NIHR CDRF [Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship] scheme. So then I had a year, they paid me a year to basically just write an application. Because it was such a massive application. So I was really lucky [laugh] actually. Unfortunately I didn’t get it. I did get to interview, and then didn’t get through the interview process. But for me, like what an opportunity. I mean, no one ever gives you that chance to just have a year, just to basically sit and read and write, and meet people, and absorb as much as you can. And like – an amazing opportunity. And although the outcome, the desirable outcome was obviously that I would get the PhD grant, then go on and do more stuff, but. And at the time, I was gutted. Because you put your- You know what it’s like, you put your life and soul, don’t you, into writing these research proposals. And I didn’t get- And I think they told me like two days before Christmas, [laugh] and I was just like ‘oh.

But I’m still really grateful for that year, and it was – you know, I definitely, I definitely got so much from that year. And, and I think that then led into the jobs that I’m now doing. So, you know, it all- doors open, don’t they, I think.

But this Fundamentals’ course, they- They do- I guess they go a bit deeper into the background of GCP [Good Clinical Practice] and where it came from, and you know, the atrocities in the war and that type of thing, and. But it’s also bits like, you know, how to manage a site file, and how to keep a site file up to date, and what needs to be in it, and what doesn’t need to be in it, and you know, how to manage a difficult PI [Principal Investigator], and . You know, sort of how to manage up the chain, and. So, sort of those kind of elements that were very relevant to someone going into that sort of research delivery post. It was about a four day course I think, from what I remember. So there was an awful lot of content. And it did just give you a really good grounding in. Because obviously up to that point I’d sort of been used to- So I was used to the ethics process, and I was used to sort of writing protocols, and I was used to the sort of approvals processes that you have to go through. But I certainly wasn’t used to how to, the practicalities of delivering research, and how to sort of take a protocol that wasn’t yours, and unpick it and then decide ‘how am I actually going to make this work, and how am I going to deliver it. So, that course was really useful in terms of moving into the current role.