About Me

A year ago I received confirmation that I had been successful in my application for a CDRF post/studentship. CDRF stands for Clinical Doctoral Research Fellow: translation I would now be spending 60% of my working week studying and working towards a PhD in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton. The other 40% I would continue working within Portsmouth Health Trust at the Queen Alexandra Hospital as a Specialist Research Nurse. At that point I had no idea what that would mean or what it involved, the past year has been challenging and fulfilling with one of the steepest learning curves I have ever encountered.

The biggest lesson I have learned to date is that the work of a PhD can be isolating. So to combat that I have been working on building a network of others who are also completing a PhD. This blog is a part of that network. Sharing my experiences and thoughts with others in the wide inter-web to increase my connectivity to other students, researchers, and clinician's.

My PhD thesis is centered around the Burden of Treatment (BoT) Theory and I am exploring if there is an association between BoT and symptom burden in people who have chronic heart failure. In short, I want to know if the symptoms that those is heart failure experience change how they view the work that they are expected to do to manage their condition and maintain their health.

In the NHS I work with a team of research nurses, doctors and other clinicians to deliver a range of clinical trials within the clinical environment. These can range between medication trials, trials exploring new technologies (e.g. medical devices), to observational studies and qualitative studies. Currently my focus is on studies within cardiology, but I can and have worked within other specialties.

In my free time, I divide my time between; friends and family, growing flowers, fruit and vegetables, and windsurfing.