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uh, as you've already heard, I'm professor of, uh, neuro radiology at the University of Nottingham, and I have a number of roles in in academic training. I've involved in training radiology trainees. But as our Omar said, I'm also, uh, the deputy director of academic training in Nottingham and have a particular role for overseeing the academic foundation program in in Nottingham and Derby. Um, I'm very involved in in a CF training as well. Um, so what I want to do in this talk really bearing in mind that your all individuals who have presumably turned up because you're interested in in both radiology, particularly interventional radiology and academia first of all want to talk about why I think it's a good idea to consider a career in research, really basing that on my own experiences in my own reflection. Then I want to talk a bit about the academic training pathway, um, that we have in place at the moment and and also to talk about some alternative approach is that that I think it's worth being aware of. I will say a little bit about the academic job applications. Um, rather than going into in in in a lot of detail. I want to give you some broad, Um, uh, bits of advice. Um, you know, we still got What is it? Sort of, uh, 688 months or so before the main application window opens. Um, So what I want to do is actually give you some advice and what you can be doing before the application to to make your applications as strong as possible. And then I want to talk a little bit about taking steps into research. Because even before you're in an academic post, um, it's a good idea to try and get some involvement in some exposure to research. And and I want whatever level you're at at the moment, I want to give you some advice that that you can be using, um, again to try and strengthen your careers. So a little bit about me and my background, I am a clinical and academic neuroradiologist. I work, uh, with literally a 50 50 split. Um, I alternate weeks one week for the NHS in Queens Medical Center in, uh, not in as a clinical neuroradiologist. And the other a week I work for the University of Nottingham. mainly in research, um, capacity, but also with some teaching commitments. I will be completely honest with you. I'm not an interventional radiologist. Um, but I have done a fair bit of intervention during my training. I did quite a lot of vascular intervention. I did a lot of cerebral angiography, so I I I still work very closely with interventional radiologists. Radiologists, Of course. So I I think I had a reasonable insight into what interventional radiology involved as a career. In terms of my own research, I'm very involved in imaging for trials to provide outcome measures in clinical trials, particularly in stroke, cancer and m s and up at the top. There's just a couple of, uh, recent publications from large, uh, stroke trials, drug trials I've been involved in. Um, I'm also involved in some imaging and biomarker studies. Um, mechanistic imaging studies, Uh, and so the right you can see some images from the study we're currently doing where we're using transcranial magnetic stimulation, Um, which is a noninvasive neuromodulation technique to try and improve cognitive performance in people with M s. And the reason I'm involved is a radiologist, and in fact, leading the studies because we use the M R scans to guide, um, the target for the neuronavigation and also to provide various readouts of changes in brain connectivity that we've induced by the neuromodulation. Um and so I mentioned these things, Really? Just show that although I'm not an interventional radiologist in in terms of putting needles and catheters into people, I do have a lot of involvement in studies that involve an intervention, be it drug intervention or non invasive neuromodulation or other, um, techniques like that. But the one interventional trial I am currently involved in, um is the pro fate trial, which is a mechanical thrombectomy trial where we're evaluating, um, the performance of, uh, balloon guide catheters, which may no, uh, can stop the blood flow in a vessel. Uh, we're evaluating the use of these catheters whilst performing mechanical thrombectomy. And you might if you know anything about this, you might know that these catheters already actually widely used, But, um, amazingly, they've never been prospectively evaluated in a randomized control trial. You know, operators use them because they prefer them. Um, some operators, um, choose not to use them because they prefer not to use them and there's no good trial evidence. And so, along with my colleague mesh Dylan, who I'm going to talk a little bit more about later on. Uh, we we are currently running a true interventional radiology trial at the moment, uh, from the bottom, because with all of this research, I I guess it sounds a bit cheesy, but my hope is that I will make a difference. And I hope that the research we do helps us to come up with better treatments or at least better ways to diagnose and evaluate patient's, um, that will impact on their care. But as well as hoping to make a difference, I think there are a number of other important reasons why I, uh, enjoy doing research. And I thought it was worth sharing those with you because there may be things that you perhaps haven't considered yet. But to me, they are probably as important in terms of my my job satisfaction as as the notion that I might make an impact to patient care. So what are these things? Um, well, this is a little diagram showing me and my interactions with people in my NHS job, so I obviously interact with other neuro duelists, and I really enjoy the group of people I work with. They're not in their their fantastic bunch. And I work with Radiographers, who I really enjoy the interaction with as well. And then various other specialty, um, clinicians, neurosurgeons, oncologist, straight medics and the like, uh, and of course, we have our radiology trainees, and I get a lot of, um, enjoyment out of the interaction with with with our trainees. Uh, it's just a small selection. There's obviously lots of other people I interact with. But the thing about research is it opens a whole load of doors to work with other people, and they're often really interesting people who have a very different perspective. So I work with them. Are physicists, um, neuroscientists, psychologists, computer scientists, statisticians, mathematicians. Um, and of course, we have a lot of students undergrad, but also Post grad, uh, PhD students and so on. And for me, this interaction with a much, much wider group of people is is really enjoyable, and it keeps me on my toes. Basically, I have to keep on learning, keep keep on thinking about things so that when I talk to these people. I don't feel like a complete and utter idiot. Um, so people and interactions is something that you get out of research. Um, and I certainly enjoy another thing. Uh, maybe isn't obvious. Um, is the fact that my clinical work in radiology and research happened on completely different timescales. So with my clinical reporting, um, the the timeframe I tend to work, too, is minutes to hours. You know, I can sit down in the morning with a big stack of reporting to do, and I can rattle through it. And at the end of it, I'll have reported at 30 CT scans. Um, and most of those I will never see again there, done that. Work has kind of gone. Um, and it's, you know, after after lunch, it's the next stack of reporting to do. Um, whereas research happens on a timescale of months through 30 years, Um, because by the time you had an idea, discussed it with people, got the funding, got you know, all the ethics and governance approvals in place, done the research, analyzed it written out, published it, and so on. You are typically talking years and for some of the research that I've been involved in now where we have trials that have gone on to 2nd and 3rd stages were talking decades, certainly over a decade worth of research. And I really like the difference in time scales that I have to the two sides of my jobs. It keeps things varied and interesting. And of course, the nice thing about both of these timescales is perfectly compatible with drinking coffee, which is another one of the radiologists favorite activities. Um, but also, just some other things that the feature in in my research world that I enjoy are the fact that I get to explore really interesting questions. Um, you know, that that appeal to me and that that I think are interesting I get to being involved in things like public engagement activity. Obviously, teaching is an important thing, Uh, impact by which I mean, you know, the fact that not only do I hope my research has an impact, but also I get to be involved in things like writing guidelines, acting as, uh, you know, an expert in certain areas. And then the last one there is mentoring, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about mentoring later on because I think that's a really important thing that, uh, I want to get across, okay. And I think you can very clearly see on this slide that I'm 100% Generation X in that I still have, um, smart art in my power point presentations. And I still think they look good. Okay, next slide. I'm going to talk a little bit about the integrated academic training pathway now, because this is something that you're probably already aware of all, um, need to be aware of if you're thinking about going down the academic medicine route. So in your clinical training and for for most, uh, doctors who don't go down the academic route these days, this is the pathway you follow medical school into foundation. You may have a gap between foundation, especially training. You know, people often do an F three or go overseas for a bit, and some of them even come back. And then there's a specialty training years, which, in radiology is five years as a s t. Uh, registrar. Uh, if you do intervention or interventional neuroradiology, there is a six year that you can do. But most radiology training is five years after which you pop out at the end of training and you become a consultant. Obviously, you do still continue to learn and develop as a consultant. You're not the finished item When you get your C c T. I learn, um, new things every day. I think that I'm doing my clinical work because the field is changing so rapidly. Um, then there is a parallel academic training pathway that that goes along with this. So, uh, in medical school, you may do things like integrated degrees some places offering, uh, an MD PhD type program. Or if you come into medical school as graduate entry Medic, you may already have done, um, other degrees and done some bits of research. There is then the Academic Foundation program, which I'll talk a bit more about in a moment. Um, And then again, there may be a gap after the academic foundation program where you go off and do other things. Um, but then the next stage in the academic training program is the academic clinical fellow ship, which lasts for up to three years. Um, and in that in that three years, you get 25% of your time. Uh, ring fenced in theory, for you to do research. I say in theory, because, uh, there are always demands from the clinical side, and sometimes it can be quite tricky to to to fend them off. But the idea is you have 25% of your your time doing research and the idea of the academic clinical fellowship really, as well as getting some, um, skills under your belt and building a portfolio is that it should be used as a chance to prepare for a PhD if you haven't already got one. And when I say prepare for PhD, Really, what we're talking about there is preparing a competitive funding application for a PhD scholarship. Uh, you may end up in a with a team or in a post where that isn't an issue, and they've already got funding in hand from PhD, in which case you're very lucky. But most people don't have PhD funding available and bearing in mind that funding has to not only cover the research costs and the tuition fees, it will probably need to also cover your salary for 2 to 3 years. So typically, you know, you're talking about a quarter of million pounds worth of funding something like that, Um, for a PhD scholarship, Uh, so in that a CF, you're you're supposed to develop a strong application to allow you to compete for PhD funding. After that, you, um, are then eligible with a PhD to apply for, uh, h R clinical lectureship. And these are posts that have 50% of your time allocated for research there for the last two years of your training before you become a consultant. But they extend your training pro rata. So if you've got two years to go of clinical training, you these posts or four years long so you still get your full two years' worth of clinical training that you have two years to do research. And again, this is a chance for you to really establish yourself as an independent academic. Um, bringing in your own grants, bringing in, you know, setting up your own projects a little bit more independent from your supervisor, Uh, and then after which when you become a consultant, your, um, the next academic steps are to go for something like a clinical senior lecturer post. Um, you may apply for a research fellowship again. Um, sorry. Research professorship funded like NIH are and MRC off for various schemes. And there's also route for research Active consultant. So NHS employed consultants are very involved in research called the Carp Scheme, which I won't go into now because I think you guys are still a long way away from that. Okay, now that's the academic training pathway, as it's sort of written down in the guidelines. What I want to do is just, uh, the next couple of slides is show you that. In fact, um, there are other ways to do it, and I think that's important because I know very, very few people. In fact, I can't think of anyone off the top of my head who has followed this training pathway Exactly. It's much more common for people to take elements of it. So, for example, you may not, uh, get an academic foundation program post because you don't want to do one at the time or you apply and don't get offered one. Um, you know, there's various reasons why you may not end up in an academic foundation program That doesn't prevent you from applying from an academic, clinical fellow post. Um, you know, you can still you can still do it. You obviously have to be competitive. You have to have, um uh, you know enough evidence on your application that you've got an interest in academia, but it certainly doesn't preclude you if you haven't done an academic foundation program place. And in fact, I'll show you aside in a moment. That explains why um, the F p can be both helpful, but also not necessarily as helpful as you might think. Um, so then, if you go down the route to doing an A C f and a PhD, you may then not decide not to do the clinical lecturer post. You may decide to just finish off your training through the last two years in clinical training and then at a later date. Once you've got your consultant post, you may then decide to apply for an academic, uh, post, because you've already got a bit of you've got a PhD and some some research under your belt. Um, similarly, we've had people who haven't actually done the F p or an a C f. They just had been offered an opportunity to do a PhD. You know, an opportunity has arisen. They've taken it. They've stepped out of training with, you know, they've applied trout period of out of program research, done their PhD, finished their clinical training and then come back later on as a research active, uh, consultant for as a as a as a clinical academic. What else may happen? You may get people who actually do a PhD at a different stage rather than between the A CF and clinic electro post. Um, you know, it may be after your academic foundation program that your supervisor comes along, says, Actually, look, we've got a really good opportunity. I've got some funding for a post. Um, would you consider doing it as a PhD, Um, and then coming back in at a later date? You know, there's no need to do an A C F if you already have a PhD, because the A C F is, as I said, really a chance to write a PhD, Um, scholarship application. Well, if you already have a PhD that that's not really required. So you see, there's these various different ways to to mix and match. And one, uh, you know, the template pathway isn't going to work for everyone. And in fact, um, you know, the majority of people will end up deviating at some point from from the grand plan, just to mention we also have people who do the academic foundation program and then exit the clinical clinical training and don't come back to academia. We have a C. S. You do that as well. Um, now, in some ways, you might think, well, that that's a bit of a failure of the system. If they've come along, they've done the post with us and they decide they don't want to stay in academia. They want to go back to clinical practice. Personally, I don't have a problem with that at all. I think you know it's actually really valuable to try something. Give it a really good go and discover that it's not for you. I think that's still a positive outcome, because the last thing you want to do is commit to a career in a particular area that actually you're not enjoying, so I think it's not a problem. Um, you know, obviously we, we we we want. If that's going to happen, we want to make sure that people have still had a positive experience. We don't want people to leave because, you know, they were put with a really awful supervisor. But, you know, I think it's still fine to give something a really good go and decide it's not for you. Okay, Before I go further, I just want to say a little bit about my own background because I went through my training before that academic pathway had been defined. Um, so I have a slightly different background, but I think there's still a few useful points in there. So I did a, uh, interrelated degree at medical school in biochemistry, which was fine. I enjoyed it, but it didn't convince me that I wanted to be a researcher. Got to be honest. Um, so I then became a junior doctor. I did, um my, uh what was preregistration year? And then a couple of years as an S h. O in adult medicine? I see. And I did my m r. C p. And at that stage, I didn't know that I really wanted to be a radiologist. or that I wanted to be a researcher. It was actually when I was in one of my, um, later Medical Ward jobs when I was on a stroke unit. Um, I found that it was so much easier to get the radiology reports quickly if I went down with the patient to the M R department when they were having a scan and actually chatted to the radiologist when I was down there and they would often say, Yeah, there's a big stroke or there's a big hemorrhage or something like that. And so simply by trying to bypass some of the very slow hospital systems that we had in those days, I ended up getting talking to radiologist and decided that actually, it sounded quite interesting, and I might want to do it as a career. So at that point, I went and spoke to the professor of radiology and Nottingham, who was a guy called Alan Moody, who's now in Candida. And I said to him, Quite interested in this. Can you give me a project to do? Um so I I reached out and he said, Better than that there's a funding opportunity coming up. Let's write an application for you to do a PhD. So we wrote the application, submitted it, and it got rejected. Um, and that's the first thing I want to mention that that my first experience of proper medical research was a rejection. So I then kind of thought, Well, never mind applied for radiology, got a training post, but at that stage had given up on the research. It wasn't until halfway through my radiology training when I, uh, a new professor would start in Nottingham and I did a small research project, and it grew basically grew into a PhD with no great planning on my behalf. It just was going very well. And I thought, Oh, I might as well see if I can get something out of this. So I registered for a PhD, and, uh So I took the opportunity and then found I really enjoyed the PhD research carried that on whilst I was in your radiology fellow. Um, I went part times in your radiology fellow partly for childcare reasons, but also because I had this PhD going on and then I qualified. Worked for a year as a locum consultant in in Leicester people coming back to Nottingham as the associate professor and then professor. So I think just like the reason I mention this because as I say, he give some illustrations of the thing I'm going to mention in the moment which is around getting knocked back early on. Um but But then later on, reaching out to people and taking opportunities as they come up. Same. What are the aims of the AFP? Um So what I'm going to talk to you about now is how we run the scheme in Nottingham. Um, I know that other places run it slightly differently, but for us in Nottingham, the AFP is a four month placement during your second foundation year. And as I said, what I really want it to be is a positive experience of medical research. Um because I think that that's the most important thing you can get at that stage is a genuine interest and enthusiasm for medical research. Um, I wanted to be an opportunity for you to acquire transferrable skills and the reason I put transferrable research skills in there is because actually you you may not know exactly which specialty you want to end up going into, um, And in some ways, it probably doesn't matter. You know, if you're not necessarily doing your research in the the specialty that you're you think you're going to end up in because if you get transferable research those, you can take them with you to whichever specialty you end up in. Um, and I'll talk a bit more about the choice of projects in just a moment. Um, but also it is an important opportunity to start to build up a research portfolio. So to start, to get some evidence, that of things that you've done skills that you've acquired because that can be important when you're applying for jobs later on. So in Nottingham, we offer a number of academic foundation posts. Some of them are tied, tied to a particular specialty because of the way the funding comes. So we have some post in general practice, psychiatry and periodic care where if you get one of those posts, you do end up doing your research with those teams. But for all the other posts we give, uh, the foundation program doctor a free choice of research with the caveat that it has to be something we can support in Nottingham. So, for example, nothing. We don't have academic cardiothoracic surgery, so there's no point coming to Nottingham and asking to do academic cardiothoracic surgery. We can't offer it, but we do have a pretty broad range of specialties and, um, as well as the clinical specialties. I'm also keen to give people the opportunity who want to to go off and do, um, more fundamental science research. So this year, we've had people have gone off and done wet lab research. You know, cancer biology. We've had people who've gone off and done some really interesting bio, um, biomedical material research. Um, so you know, it's a chance to really, um, you know, provided we can support it to go off and explore an area that interests you. And I think that's that's really important because although I said earlier, you know what's important is is getting transferrable skills and it didn't matter which specialty your your in to do that which I still stand by that the flip side of it is if we can match you up with the research area that genuinely, genuinely interests you. I know from experience, you're more likely to get a lot out of it. Your team, the supervisor are more likely to get, um, get really good work out of you. Because it's just human nature that we work more effectively if we're in an area that we find genuinely interesting. Um, now I know that other schemes don't necessarily offer you a choice of research area. They may prescribe a particular, um, uh, area that you have to work in and even a project. You may end up, you know, some schemes. You may end up being allocated a project. Um, now, I You know what again? I'd go back to the point there that you still get an opportunity to to acquire transferrable skills. And you never know. You may find it's actually the best thing that happened to you. And you may decide that it's the specialty for you for the rest of your life. Um, but, you know, just be aware of different schemes, Do things finally differently. Yeah, um, just a little bit more about the foundation program. Then, um, the way we run it in Nottingham is we We have these four month blocks during the second year of the foundation program. So, um, we've got sort of August through to November, December to march and then april to July. And what I try and get the, uh, foundation doctors to do is about eight months before they start is to, uh, eight months before they start. The research block is to try and identify research area that I think might interest them and identify potential supervisors. And basically, I do this as a kind of I end up as a matchmaker. So if someone says to me, Do you know what I think Renal is quite interesting. I will then put people in touch with, uh, supervisors in renal medicine who I know are good supervisors And who would be, um, you know, uh, suitable for overseeing academic foundation research by four months before I hope that they've managed to agree a research plan with the supervisor so that by the time they start the actual research block, they know what they're going to be doing. They could have done some background reading background work and can really hit the ground running. And what we sometimes find is actually, people get surprisingly long way into their project before they've even started because, you know, if they paired up with the research supervisor who is supportive and spies them and and, um, you know, and starts to get them working on things, people can actually be very, very productive even before they started. Uh, the research placement. Um, so that's kind of how it works. But the one thing that some of you may have spotted is that if you are going planning to go straight into an A c f from, uh, foundation, um, year to the A. C F application process and interviews actually happens in the autumn, uh, of your f y two, Which means if you see that you know, on the diagram here, most of the people who are going to do academic blocks still won't have done, uh, their academic placement because that doesn't happen till later in year. And even those who are in their academic placement, you know, they've been in post for maybe two or three months but are unlikely to have many outputs from there work at that stage because outputs tend to take a little while to come along. So it's just to to mention that this is the point, I sort of raised earlier that the f having an AFP can be a very strong thing on your A C F application because it shows that you've got a commitment to research you. You've thought about it, you know, in advance and so on. But it also in some ways doesn't help that much because you're unlikely to have a whole portfolio full of papers and presentations and evidence of research skills arising from your AFP by the time you're applying for the a C F interview. So it's just something to be to be aware of. Of course, if you're gonna take another year or two before you apply for an A C f Um, that's that's that's that's a slightly different matter. Okay, so, um, I also now just want to, um, briefly mention about the A C F program because I know that some of you on the call may already be in foundation jobs and maybe thinking about ACS. As I said before, a CFS are really about, uh, the, um developing an application for a PhD scholarship. So that's sort of the things you probably want to try and get done during your a C f r to have identified a research topic that's that's obvious and a particular research question. And then in that research topic or addressing the research question, You, uh, probably want to undertake a systematic review to show that you fully understand the literature. You know, there's definitely a knowledge gap that you can address. You want to acquire some generic research skills, maybe around trial design or statistics or, um, you know, wet lab skills. If if it's a if it's that sort of project. Ideally, you want to try and collect some pilot data that you can put into your PhD scholarship application. And obviously, it's good to have a few publications under your belt just to show you have got a track record of being able to write, um, scientifically and and and and so on. Now, um, this is kind of how a lot of people see it. You know, you've got three years and you've got to do these things. I hate to tell you this, but the reality is slightly different because if you want to go straight into a PhD scholarship at the end of this, so at the end of August. So by August of the end of the third year, the application for the student ship for the scholarship really has to go in sometime around the summer or autumn before that August. And that's because the funders like NIH are and MRC have such long lead times for the for processing these applications for getting a review, interviewing candidates and so on. Um, that really you've got to get the majority of the work done in the first two years. In third year, you can you know, um, perhaps, uh, I was going to say, Relax a bit bit, but in fact you're still going to be writing stuff up and you're going to be preparing for the interview if you get called for interview. Still a lot of work to do. So everything kind of gets crammed into the first two years. But the other thing to bear in mind is you are doing this in parallel with clinical training, and, uh so you're trying to keep up with all of your peers who are 100% clinical trying to acquire all the skills you need in radiology to be able to practice the radiologist and to, uh, take part in your calls and things like that. But you also have a couple of major hurdles. So in the first year, midway through the first year, you've got the part one f R c r. Then in, uh, sometime around the end of the second year beginning of 30 you've got to a and you've got later on to be. And of course, this assumes you pass them all. First time if you fail your fr cr part one which people do you've got possibly one or even two resets, and you can see the impact this has because while you're trying to get all of this stuff done, uh, ready for your PhD PhD student ship submission. You're also trying to pass these exams and particularly this exam here. The FRC are two A, which is around the time you're submitting the application. You imagine you're revising for a few months, you know, run up to that at the same time as you're trying to prepare this submission. Why am I telling you this? Am I trying to make it sound so horrible that that you don't do it? Not at all. But I think it's worth going to it with your eyes wide open. People do this and they get through it. Um, but it is. It is tough. It's a tough couple of years. But, you know, it's also if it works, it's very rewarding. And even if it doesn't work as I'll show you in a minute, um, you know, there are still good outcomes that can be had. So, um, let's just go through a few bits of general advice now about how to make a good application. This doesn't matter whether you're a medical student applying for foundation posts or whether you're a foundation doctor thinking about, um, uh, academic, clinical fellowships. The sorts of things that that, um, people will look for on the applications are listed here. Now, Publications is an interesting one, because, um, you know, particularly if you're a medical student, your opportunity to get publications will be, um, low. Some of you may be lucky. You may have, you know, got managed to to to to get something out of an integrated degree. Or you may have, um, you know, joined the team. Um, and, um, managed to get your name on publication, and that's great. And there are various things you can do. I think that can, um, help that there are quite a lot of now, I think, quite big student organizations that are involved in collecting data from multiple centers. And and, you know, Clayton, that and writing it up, Um, it's quite a good way to get your name on a publication. But just be aware if you've just contributed some data, uh, to a national audit or something like that, Um, your name will be somewhere in a long list of 200 contributors, and the people reading your application will see that, and you'll get some credit for it. But it's better if you can actually be involved in writing the paper. So if you have an opportunity to become part of the committee or to lead on a project that has an added value, um, you know, it's always worth asking around locally, and I'm talking a little bit more about this in a moment because there may well be opportunities arising to join local projects where they, you know, um, doctors or researchers, um, need an extra pair of hands to collect and crunch through data and that's that's often quite a good way to get your name on a publication. If you previously had contact with supervisors during again, like an indicated project or, um, you know, particular clinical placements you've been on as a student. Speak to them. Um, see, See if they've got any suggestions and I'll come back to that in a moment. Teaching is something that will be looked for on the application. So, evidence of teaching. And you probably get bonus points if you've done something like a formal certificate of post grad certificate in, in, in Teaching. Um, so again, during foundation is if that's, you know, there are some funding opportunities available to support, uh, foundation doctors from doing some additional, um, teaching leadership type activity. So look out for those. Um, I've also put leadership here. So again, if you've had an opportunity to lead it could be anything from a student society setting up, you know, a student society or contributing to a committee. Um, like the one organizing this talk tonight. All of those things are positive. Um, And, um, you know, and bear in mind that that, um, anything you can do to sort of get your head above the crowd is good in this context. Um, I think I also look for evidence of genuine interest in radiology research in the sort of free text bits where people get to put down what they've done in the past. It's very easy to spot when people are just putting in in waffle. You know, um, don't right tons, because again, you know, if you're reviewing hundreds of applications, it's it's, um, as a reviewer. It's difficult to maintain your concentration when people have written acres and acres, try and keep it concise. But But try and convey the fact that this is something you you're genuinely interested in you had interest in for quite a while and try and provide evidence of what you've done, um, to to sort of demonstrate that that interest in radiology, interventional radiology and research and if you put other courses in that you've done that, you think are relevant to application, try and get in a little bit of reflection. Why they're important what you learned from them, because again, you know, as a short list, we want to see that we've got people who are just ticking boxes but they are actually genuinely trying to develop as as an individual. Okay, so a bit more specific advice. Now, um, if you're thinking about doing research now again, this this It doesn't matter now whether you're talking about a very small project as a, um as a as a medical student on the firm that you're attached to for clinical attachment or whether it's something much larger, like your academic foundation, um, or a cf project First thing to say, I would say, Try and identify a mentor and my mentor. I mean, not just someone who's who's going to act as a supervisor and tell you what to do. But by mentor, I mean, someone who's genuinely interested in your development. Um, and that can be a difficult thing. You might not find it easy to find that individual, but, you know, keep an eye out for people who you think could be a good mentor. Good role model. Now, the person picture here is Professor Dorothy, our who's the person I mentioned when I was midway through my radiology training, I approached instead of you got a project that I could do, and over the course, my academic radiology career. She has undoubtedly been my most important mentor, very inspiring individual, but always very interested in my own development. Even now, I'm I'm a professor. I work with her in the department with on paper, both at the same sort of level, but but still, she is very much my mentor, who I asked for advice regularly. So try and find a mentor and and invest in that relationship. Um, because you can develop a lot from that. Another bit of advice. Um, find a buddy. Um, so I'll explain what I mean by that in a moment. But this picture here is per mesh. Dylan, who I mentioned earlier who's running the the interventional neuroradiology trial. Per mesh is an academic. Well, he was somebody's go, uh, an academic clinical fellow. And I was his his supervisor. Um, he's actually a really good example of someone who who, um the A C f didn't completely work for, um, the mesh. We started off on a project looking at dementia imaging. But a couple of years into his Asef, he realized that what he really wanted to do was intervention and vascular intervention. So rather than go for a PhD. I said, Well, look, stroke, you know, I do some stroke research. Stroke is a vascular problem. Um, let's try and set you up with a project around some stroke imaging. Um, not it's not intervention, but it gives you a chance to look at some perfusion imaging and so on. And so we set up an MRI is for him. So he didn't do his do a PhD as you're expected from the A C. F. And, um, you know, there was a lot of uncertainty as to which way he was going to go. The MRI's went well, and he then decided because filling with stroke, he wanted to do interventional neuro rather than just pure body intervention and started his interventional neuro training. But he by this time he'd been properly bitten by the research bug. And he has gone on to be one of the most productive registrars I've ever worked with. And he's now just been appointed as a consultant interventional neuroradiology in Nottingham. And he's still incredibly productive as a researcher. Um, and what's nice for me, is I I kind of think I have been one of his mentors. I don't know if he would say, I've been the most important, But certainly, you know, we we talked very regular about his development, about his research ideas. What's really nice is now that he's a consultant, I'm and you know he's leading his own research programs is I'm now seeing him mentoring other people? And Omar, he very kindly introduced me at the beginning. I think it'd be fair to say that he has permissions taken you, Omar under his wing as as, um, one of our AFP doctors and has has really sort of, uh, taken interest in in your career development. And it's lovely to see that kind of mentorship going down through the generations. So find a buddy. Why have I mentioned about a buddy? Because I'm I've been permissions meant about but but I wouldn't say necessarily, buddy. Well, this photo is, uh, Doctor Anna, Pod Losec and Ana was one of our academic f threes. It was a post worn off post that we we had some funding for and created, um, again, very bright individual. And she and per mesh have become, like a bit of a kind of wonder team in terms of research. They have both been very productive in terms of research. And, um, there is something about the interaction between them that, uh means that they just completely get each other. I think in terms of the research and, um uh, seem to just be sort of producing lots and lots of help puts now. So in terms of for you, my advice to you is trying to identify a buddy someone you know you can work with or you think you're going to be able to work with. They don't necessarily have to have the same skill sets as you. In fact, it may help if they don't. So Ana came. We already had an MSC in medical statistics, so she's very much supported Permission the statistical side of his analyses. Um, but, you know, it can be someone you can work with because actually, you can get a lot more done if there's two of you. And you know it's not a competition, because you can both get your names on the outputs that come out of it. Um and you know, you can significantly ease the workload. So if you look around you at the other people you work with who might be interested and see if you want to kind of buddy up. Um, I mean, just to make I mentioned at the very beginning that the stroke cars I've been involved in the titch trial particularly. I guess you know Nikki Sprigg, who's a stroke researcher, Uh, here in Nottingham. In some ways, we've kind of been buddy her the stroke physician with the NEURORADIOLOGIST. And we've worked together on the number of projects over the years. So So see who you're see if you find a buddy, OK, think carefully before signing up to a project. Now, this is what is important because what you don't want to do is sign up to do something that's a complete dud of a project. And I know this can be difficult to establish up front. And sometimes it's only something you see in hindsight, and I certainly, you know, signed up to things that have turned out not to work. But sometimes you'll have a gut feeling and I would say, Go with that cut feeling, you know, if it looks like a dynamic team who are welcoming, friendly, supportive, you know, and everything, that's a good sign. If it's someone who just wants you to sit down and collect data and put it in a big database, um, with no great plan of what's going to happen to that, I would think very carefully. If it's someone who just wants you to write up their case series for them again, you might get a publication out of it. But it's probably a relatively limited value. Um, in terms of developing your research career. So, see, you know, look at the team who are there, see what support there that they're going to be able to give you. Um, And I think the the last thing is they really important is, you know, uh, around the, uh, signing up to the project. Does it actually interest you? I said earlier, you're more likely to be productive. You'll get more out of a project if it really interests you. And just think about things like the time you have available. Because if you're studying for exams working, very tough row to Of course you may. You know you don't want to commit to something that's actually not realistic. I always think about what skills you, you, you you want to develop what you want to acquire. So if you're doing a project an office based project with that that involves a systematic review and meta analysis, Think about how you can develop your skills. What? What bits of the project you're going to do that you can walk away with, Um, you know, as as skills that you actually have, rather than just having been a bystander and got your name on a paper. And also, I always think, Is there a clear endpoint with a project? You know, what is what is the goal? Is there going to be a paper at the end of it is they're going to be a presentation at a conference. Um, you know what? What's what's, um and is there? Is there a point at which is obviously going to stop because you are going to move on into a different post and you don't want to have lots of stuff dragging behind you? That is unfinished. So when when is it actually going to, um, to end? Um, I think we're nearly on my last side here. So during the project, when you're actually, um, in a research project, you signed up to something. I'm sorry. Yeah. So really important. Bit of advice. Make sure you understand the task and do ask if you're unsure. I mean, I know it sounds obvious, but the number of times I've had, um, students or trainees who have gone away thinking they understood the task and then they've got stuck and they sat there for for weeks or months not being very productive. And actually, it turned out they haven't understood what the next step is. And rather than come back and ask, they thought that they should be able to do it on their own and have got stuck that, in fact asked You really want to kind of not waste your time? It's precious. Make connections. So if there are other people in the research team, talk to them, you know, find out. Um, uh, what they do, what their skills are, how they can help you. And also in return how you can help them. Because people, you know, people you link up with during the research project, um, you know, you may think it's a time limited thing, but you never know. In a year's time when you're looking for someone with a particular skill set. You could drop them an email they may be interested to help out. I certainly, you know, linked up with people I worked with years ago, um, for for for a project. Because I I know that they've got a particular, um, skill set that I can make. Use it. And also, as I say, think about the skills you want to require. Um, What? I've just got up on screen. There is a list of academic skills and outputs listed in the Academic Training Guide from the Academy of Medical Sciences. This is just one example, but there's loads of different research skills that that you can try and acquire in with different research projects. And so it's always worth thinking. Um, you know, what skills do I need? What do I want to acquire? What can my supervisor provide? You know, there may be specific training materials that they can make available to you courses. They can send you on and always document the skills that you require and try and reflect on them how what skills you have and how you can improve on them, because it's really useful then when you come to appraisals or job applications to have a nice, clear list of all the different sort of things that you've got under your belt. Okay, so the last slide, this is general thoughts. Um, talk to people and show interest. Okay. If you're trying to, you know, identify mentors, identify supervisors, identify research projects, you got to talk to people. And they will engage so much more readily with you if you share interest in the work, Um, that they're doing and do reach out to people, particularly who inspire you. Now, just to note on that, everyone's in, boxes are heaving. Um, everyone is busy. If people don't respond to your email, please don't take it personally. Um, a gentle reminder. Email is fine. But, you know, it is really difficult. I get inquired probably about seven or eight times a week from students, trainees and so on. And I try and answer them all of them as as soon as I can, But invariably, some just get buried under the sort of continuous institutional reign of emails that come comes through. So, um, it really it's it's not personal. If people don't get back to you. It's just, I think, a reflection of how how how busy people are. But, you know, it only takes one person to respond to you. And that can change your career, as I found when I first spoke to Dorothea Hour and you know it put me on a completely different track. Um, don't be put off academic medicine if you fall at the first hurdle. So if you don't get that AFP post that you've applied for or like in my case, where you know, we wrote a PhD student ship and it got rejected. Unfortunately, rejections are part and parcel an academic career. I think people think academics have to be very brainy. In fact, that's not really the case. Most successful academics, I I know probably the ones with the thickest skin, because you get so many knock backs with papers getting rejected, funding applications, getting rejected and so on, Um, that you have to learn to shrug it off and and, you know, dust yourself off and and try again. And as I showed you with those timelines earlier, not getting an F p or not getting an A C F doesn't shut the door to academic medicine. There are many, many different ways to work your way into it. If it's the right thing for you, go with your instincts on good opportunities. As I say, you know, I think you'll have a feel for whether a team is dynamic and supportive and and likely to, um, want to invest in you. At this point, I've put in bold. I think it's really, really important. Don't underestimate your worth. As a member of the research team, you may come into research team thinking that you're the most junior member of the team, thinking, you know, compared to all these people with established researchers with big, long CVS that you you you don't have anything to contribute, you really do. And that can be, You know, it could be that, you know, if you're the person to take a task on and sort it out, you know, certainly could be something that you know the team had been wanting to do for a while, But I haven't had the person to do it. If you're that person, you can make a big contribution to the team. But more than that, I think a lot of scientists, um, lack input from people from clinical backgrounds. Um, you know, in lots of ways they you know they need the clinical input, sometimes practically to support evaluation of patient's or participants. But also, um, in terms of guiding research questions, helping to interpret their research. And as medics, medical student doctors, you come with a lot of information, a lot of experience and background knowledge that can really contribute to the research team. The picture here on the left is Penny Garland. She's a very, very, uh, eminent and a brilliant MRI physicist. I've just put it up here just to show the fact that, you know, um, they do a lot of ground breaking research in the speed amounts of center in Nottingham imaging research. But I know for a fact they still value the input that they get from, uh, medics. And they enjoy the interaction with medics. As much as I enjoy the interaction with, um with with the scientists, so as they don't underestimate your your your value to the team. Okay, so, um, that's it. Any questions? I'm gonna stops cringe sharing slides in case there's anything that's coming to the chat I think no one's many questions, I think. Thank you very much. Property. I think the talk was very, very sort of informative. I had a lot of questions to start with, but I think you answered all of them throughout the, uh the the talk. Oh, there's one from Yasmin. Are there any particular journals you would recommend trying to get publications from two? Okay. Yeah, so I mean, that that's that's a really good question. Um, let me just think how I would answer that. Um, so you may well be aware that in, uh, in academic medicine, there is sort of a bit of a hierarchy of journals. Obviously, at the top, you have New England Journal Lancet and so on. And then there's a lot of sub specially journals and some general medical journals below that, And in general, most academics try and get their publications into the publications that are seen to be the higher echelons. Now, there's a few sort of, um, important points about that. There are a lot of what referred to as predatory journals out there. You may be aware of this, but if not, um, you you'll probably start getting emails from them fairly soon. So these are journals that are generally low quality in that they generally don't have a particularly rigorous peer review. They tend to accept just about anything. Um, and they will charge you to publish. And so, if you just want to get publications on your CV, um, you could send stuff to them. But, you know, again, as a short list, I would look at that and go, Well, that's someone who's basically brought their way into a journal. Um, maybe a little bit unfair at times. But there's so many of these journals and and they're so easy to get published in, as I say, they're really considered to be of very little value. Um, and in fact, you know they rip off researchers in some parts of the world for sure. Um and, uh, they can sometimes be difficult to spot because they have names that overlap with, you know, with with bona fide journals. So, you know, you might have the American Journal of Hepatology and it'll be something like American Journal of Hepatology and Toenails or something like that. You know, they'll they'll just vary the name slightly to to kind of lure you in. So watch out those. But having said that, um, you know, there are a lot of journals around, and I think a lot of good journals. Uh, and your choice of journal will very much depend on the work you you've done And, um, the like impact of that work. I think basically, I'd suggest speaking to whichever supervisor or mentor your you're working with because they will be able to look at the work and advise. Um, you know, I tend to try and submit to specialty journals around brain imaging or clinical neuroscience because that's the field I work in. Um, there are certain things you need to consider. So even, you know, reputable journals often will have a processing fee, particularly if they're on online open access journals. Um, And again, there's no point submitting to a journal. If if you haven't got the 1500 lbs plus that they're then going to charge you for the publication, so you know, cost then also does become a bit of a consideration. Thankfully, some of the older, more established journals still will will publish without a charge. Um, but they can be quite hard to get into, so I think speak. Speak to the people you're working with Would be my my basic advice. Now you're meeting. Uh, sorry. Yeah. The next question is from Mariam. She says, Are you aware of any research projects combining, Um, uh, sort of the physiotherapy team and the medical team Uni of Nottingham. Or guess Q m c as well. Uh, so they I mean, they they nothing has quite a big rehab. Um, research department, which has a lot of physiotherapists, a lot of, um, occupational therapists in it. And they work with various medical teams. So they work with, you know, the the academic care of the elderly people. They work with orthopedics and trauma. Um, you know, in Nottingham, we have strong links to the National Rehabilitation Center, which is, um, out of town site between Nottingham and Lafeber. Uh, which is part military run and and part partly for civilians. It's not, I don't think fully open yet, but there's certainly a lot of funding coming in now to to fund research around the National Rehabilitation Center. So, I mean, if if there's a specific project or research area interested, and I'm happy to have a chat with you about it and point you in the direction of people who do that research. But But the short answer is yes. We work closely with allied health professionals to do our research. Just, I mean, just on that subject of allied health professionals, I work closely with radiographers, particularly Mar Radiographers. So I'm currently one of my PhD students is an MRI radiographer who I supported to get a scholarship we've got. I've got a co p i on a big multi center study with another research radiographer who's from an M R background. So, as I said at the beginning, the interaction is really important. And I think, you know, working with the Allied Health Professionals is brings another perspective to my work. And I enjoy that. Thank you very much. The next question is from Minho She over here or she has said, If you do not make it into the a CF program, is there much scope at all to still be involved in research during a non a CF radiology training scheme? Yeah, I would say the other studies. Yes, I can't speak every center because obviously, you know the access will vary, um, from place to place. Uh, but we you know, I certainly support research amongst our radiology registrars. I don't force it on people, but if people, you know, I I make myself available. And if people come to me, then I'm more than happy to try and support and find a project that interests them. Um, And if I can't there are also some academically active, simple, some research, active clinical, um, consultant radiologists who I work with who are also happy to to give people research projects. You know, for example, I'm a neuro radiologist, but I have people coming to me saying I want to do research, but in abdominal imaging, So I put them in the direction of some of our more research active body radiologist to do that sort of research. Um, but, you know, we we we have success in the, you know, this this year at the British Society of Neurology meeting, which is our national brain, Um, clinical brain imaging society. I had two or possibly it's definitely two of our radiology registrars. Non a CF. Radiology registrars presented work. Um, at that. That meeting, um I think you were there as well, Omar? Presenting. Um, so, yeah, it's certainly possible. Um, just be aware. I guess that that the training scheme that you apply to for your radiology training may well have a particular research focus. And if you want to do your academic work, it's worth being aware of that. So if you come to Nottingham, you know most of what we can support his brain imaging. We can do some other stuff, but you know, are real strength of brain imaging. We've got three academic radiologists and we're all neuroradiologist. Um, whereas if you go to some other places, you might find there's a much bigger emphasis on chest imaging or cancer imaging or something like that. So again, if you if there's a particular body part you're interested in, um then do do a little bit of homework to make sure the research can actually be that you want to do is actually gonna be delivered at at that center. I say, even if you're not in a CF, uh, if you just want to do general radiology train, but you want to do researching bone imaging something like that, then just just look at what's available at that. That that area. Thank you very much. I think, Uh, one more question, I think which yes, sort of answered. And you I think you've alluded to it as well. During the talk is, if I applied for a C a post and then get an offer, would I be still offered for clinical ST One Post? It probably depends on the MSRA and rankings, an interview and all that stuff. Yes. So, actually, that's a really good point. And something I just realized I completely left out. My tour is the fact that with the radiology a cf application, you do still have to apply for, um, the national clinical radiology selection process. Um, just apply for the A C. F. Alone is, um, not enough. And we have had people not in regularly, thankfully, but in the past. Who, um, who got an A C f offer but forgot to go through the national, uh, especially recruitment. So you do still have to apply. And then you, uh so you do the MSR a exam, and you, uh, go through a benchmarking process whereby if you're, uh, I think you have an interview And you're, uh if you pass the benchmarking, um, level and you, um, interview. Well, then you can get, um, appointed to the, uh the the CF. And if, of course, you don't want to take the A c f. But you are above, um, you rank, uh, successfully for the clinical program. I think you can Still, I think at that stage you can still opt not to do the A c f, but to to stick with the clinical, um, specialty. But it's it's Yeah, it's a little bit complicated. And I'd just be aware that that, you know, things might change. The rules might change. So when you're ready to apply, just read the walls carefully and make sure you know what you have to do. Um, in the application. Brilliant. Thank you. And I think we'll take the last question just in the interest of time again. From, you know, who said I'm personally interested in I in our intervention, your radiology? How do you get into that subspecialty? Is it a competitive process at S. T four? Uh, basically, um, it's it's not formally competitive in that there isn't a kind of a process of re applying for subspecialty training once you've got your fr So So when you're going to s t four in general, at that point, people, hopefully a good way towards getting their FRC our exam. You know, you'll do it sort of typically early in the s t four years. Um, and at that point, people are looking to sub specialize in lots of different areas. So radiology trainees will have had discussions with their local trainers, educational supervisors, and we'll know probably whether they want to do chest or M s k or neuro iron are that sort of thing. And hopefully the train scheme will have already got a plan in place to support that individual. Um, like, for example, in Nottingham. We we, um, can train. You know, one or two people in iron are, um, each year. Um, if we have local people who want to do it, that's brilliant. If we don't and we have spare training numbers, we may advertise openly, and so at the moment, we actually have a couple of people who come in from elsewhere because we didn't And last year we didn't have local people who wanted to go into it. And so we we bought people in, Um, but you know, that doesn't happen every year. We don't have sort of ring fenced funding for most of the time. If there's a local training who wants to do it, then we will transport them. We have occasionally had a bit of a crush where we've had four people in one year say they want to do it, and that gets a little bit more challenging. But, you know, we, we we we I N r is a shortage, especially at the moment in the lots of centers are trying to put out on 24 7 mechanical thrombectomy services. And it's very difficult to have a 24 7 rotor if you've only got three consultants. So a lot of places are trying to increase their number of iron ours, and and so at the moment, you know, we, we, we and many other centers that are looking to train people we if we had four people in one year wanted to do it, I think we would probably work, try and work out some plan to to try and accommodate people or look at options to send people elsewhere for a bit so that they could go down to London or somewhere else to do a bit of training as well. All right, thank you very much. I think these are all the questions. Uh, thank you very much, Professor. In for giving up the time to come and, uh, give this talk. I think everyone from the chat seems to have found it very insightful. And so did I. Um, and yeah, I would recommend everyone if if you're applying for the the AFP program to come to Nottingham, I've found it incredibly. The last four months have been in credible and the team I've worked with, we're all very sort of nice. I don't have a lot of research back experience and sort of from the background, but I've definitely learned a lot in the last three or four months, so yeah, I would highly recommend Thank you. Very nice to have that feed. Thank you very much. Um, yeah. So this concludes I believe the 0.5 of our application series. Uh, and if please, if, uh, everyone could please fill in the feedback form that would be much appreciated if you feel it in you'll get the attended certificate automatically, uh, from medal. So if you wouldn't mind, please fill it in. Um and yeah. Thank you, everyone for attending. Thank you very much for