More about my "new" identity

It has been too long. I have been swamped with my "new" identity. Last time I blogged about getting my "eye mask" as a research superhero. For me it is about my progress as a PhD, but probably it is more about how I have started to feel like I am now a researcher.

I'm not sure how it is for others who are doing their PhD, but as I came into this with significant experience in research as a Specialist Research Nurse, I was already fairly familiar with how research worked. However, I normally sit on the "other side of the table." It has been an exciting and challenging experience to be the one who wrote the protocol, completed the ethics application, and who is negotiating with NHS hospital trust to open my study at their facility. As I said in the last post it has been the completion of these "tests" which lead me to feeling like I achieved the next goal of my research superhero eye mask.

So since then I feel like I've needed this "new" identity as a researcher as I received Health Research Authority ethical approval and found myself negotiating between the University of Southampton and my first site (Queen Alexandra Hospital) to facilitate them being able to be "open to recruitment". All this means is that the right paperwork has been agreed on so that the team there are able to invite people who attend the hospital for their healthcare to consider taking part in my study, SYMPACT. Since this there have been so many other things from seeing the name of my study go on the research nurses whiteboard of active studies to having confirmation that SYMPACT has been adopted by the NIHR (National Institute of Health Research) that is making me feel like things are progressing and I am becoming a researcher!

To further confirm this, At the beginning of Nov I also successfully passed my confirmation/upgrade viva with no required changes! There is no time to rest, I have so much work left to do in a very short time. Hopefully, my superhero research cape won't take much longer to get.