Internasjonal PhD erfaring (International PhD experience)

My Phd supervisor (Carl May) helped me discover a research group at the University of Stavanger (UiS) who were also doing work to understand Burden of Treatment. Even better (for me) they have focused their work on Heart Failure and colorectal cancer. I met one of their PhD candidates, Oda Nordfonn, with a project similar to mine; she too was doing interviews and surveys with patients with heart failure. We discovered are using 2 questionnaires that are the same. These similarities were complete coincidence but helped me see that I wasn't alone in this endeavour! I was keen to visit to share our ideas and discuss possibilities of how we might work together in the future.

After almost of 7 months of conversations and negotiations all the puzzle pieces came together. My flight to Norway was booked. The research group ‘PROHEALTH’ at UiS secured support for my accommodation for 2 weeks. My PhD supervisors at University of Southampton (UoS) had agreed this would be a good experience for me and I could use some of my ‘research funds’ from my Clinical Academic Research Fellowship to fund the travel. While my clinical managers had granted my study leave for the clinical days I would miss while in Stavanger.

My goals were simple: 1) Experience and observe how research and PhD’s are completed at UiS, and 2) share the early results from my PhD with those specifically interested in Burden of Treatment.

My learning and experience in Stavanger provided me with so much more! A special thanks goes to Mia Husebø for all the work she did to organise and develop my PhD internship experience.

Observing Research and PhD experience

Mia had set up multiple opportunities to speak with members of the staff and faculty at UiS. Together they helped me understand the process of gaining a PhD position or research grant in Norway. I now feel I have a better understanding of how research is set up and delivered both in the academic and clinical environments in Stavanger. They also explained the process of PhD’s; how a candidate progresses and is assessed. Together this knowledge has helped me see how to set up a more agreeable plan for collaboration for desired future collaboration with Oda and Mia. And this greater knowledge might also help in similar collaborations. It has also given me greater perspective on how the context, any researcher is in, can provide different opportunities in building specific research projects as well as highlight advantages and challenges that different environments provide to completing research or a PhD.

I discovered that in Norway there is a similar desire in clinicians to be more involved in research without losing their clinical connection. While they don’t appear to have the same formal support of a research national body like we do in the UK (NIHR clinical academic pathway) the Helse Stavanger has supported a variety of clinicians to complete their PhD’s while remaining clinical to some degree (50-75%). They have done this without the formal encouragement of a national body, like the NIHR. Clinicians there are working to build careers post PhD where they remain clinical while writing and coordinating their own research projects. As this is my career goal, I found the conversations I had with their research coordinator, clinicians, and PhD candidates highly encouraging. The roles they have established work to increase the link between the University and the hospital while helping to conduct interesting and clinically driven research projects that have the possibility of directly changing patient care.

The PROHEALTH group have a ‘culture’ of sharing morning coffee and lunch together. I have loved this practice, it helped to grow my research network more than I was expecting and helped me feel like one of their team. Oda also hosted a lunch meeting with other PhD students (Bente Høgmo, Aleksandra Sevic,Hilde Fjellså, Sara Basanta who was also on an international PhD experience) enabling us to share our different PhD experiences. It was fascinating to see how similar our different pathways were. My goal was to build a stronger network with those who were directly involved with Burden of Treatment, but I have also built links with various researchers in the Department of Public Health at UiS and with University of A Coruña. I was inspired by their projects and look forward to seeing their results. I can’t even imagine yet how these connections might grow other research opportunities in the future.

Share early results from my PhD

I was most excited about sharing my early results with Oda due to the parallels in our projects. My hosts held a mini-meeting where we all shared our recent findings. For me it was encouraging as they are a few steps ahead of me in their data analysis so it inspired me to see that the challenges I’m currently facing can be conquered! It was incredible to discuss our work with each other as ‘experts’ in this field, we had really in-depth discussions, pushing my thoughts further. Through sharing new ideas formed, learning was shared, and initial plans of how we can move things forward in our field were developed. Progress that would not have been made without this opportunity. I’d love to tell you more about this, but we are hoping to all publish greater details on our individual results and combined work in the future, so you’ll have to wait.

Communication and inter-cultural skills

Although everyone here has been so kind and considerate speaking in English, it was been a good opportunity to hone my communication skills. Presenting in English to Norwegian speakers (even though their command of English was excellent) made me think more carefully about what I was saying and how I said it to make sure that my message would be understood. I feel that my oral presentation skills and communication skills have improved a bit and I started to learn a little bit of Norwegian.

The Public Health Department was so welcoming. Their office culture made me instantly feel at home. The physical environment that they have supports working together, but they also have chosen to do things like regular informal meetings (coffee and lunch) which I felt really helped me feel like I belonged in a very short time period. Through becoming a member of this team, I saw how ‘little’ things can impact on how members of a team can feel about belonging to that team. I want to take this lesson with me in my current and future roles.

These are just the highlights of my International PhD experience, I have gained knowledge, skills and friendships through being here for only two short weeks. I have hopeful plans for the future that will hopefully incorporate more experiences like this, not just for my benefit but from what everyone here at UiS have told me to their benefit too!