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Much for inviting me. Um It's really great to um be here chatting with people. So I've got a little presentation. Um I am hoping to not um necessarily talk for too long. Um Just to give you guys time for like a bit of AQ and a at the end because I know often what's most useful um in these kind of session sessions is like having the opportunity to ask questions. Um I will warn everyone, I've just come off a, a run of four night shift. So if I'm massively rambling, please just someone flag me and say move on to the next thing. Um Cool. So, um yeah, my name's Anna. I am an OB and Gyne ST one and also an academic clinical fellow. I'm based in the northeast. Um I'm working sort of just north of Newcastle at the moment. Um So I'm gonna be chatting with you today a bit about research careers in O and G um And just to start off with, um I just wanna say thanks to doctor Alice Lynn, who's a colleague of mine um from my foundation program who helped with uh an initial version of this talk, um, that we did together. Um, and, um, I've used some of the same slides, so I just want to say thank you to Alice. Um, and just to say that some of this, um, some of the stuff I'm gonna say throughout this evening is, um, not just applicable to O and G. Um, it's applicable to lots of different specialties. So even if you're sort of unsure and, um, you know, maybe you're interested in, but there are other things that you're considering. Um Hopefully there'll still be lots of stuff that's relevant to you. Um And I'll speak a bit more specifically about my experience combining and G in academia at the end, but actually a lot of this is quite general. Um and I'm going to talk a bit about what research careers might look like and some of the options that you have in terms of integrated clinical academic training. But I'm also going to talk a bit about how you can get involved in research as a student because I know sometimes it's really difficult to find those opportunities. Um So hopefully that will all be useful for you. Please feel free to. Um, as I say, there'll be um hopefully plenty of time for Q and A at the end, but um please feel free to pop any questions or anything in the chat as we go through. Um just in case you forget them and I'm happy to address them. Um at the end, if that's all right. Um Fine. So is my slide moving along? Yeah. Ok. Brilliant. Um So the way that it's going to work tonight, is that what I'm going to talk about is some of the myths around working partially in research and partially clinically when you're a qualified doctor. And I think that the world of clinical academia is full of myths. Um And I hear a lot of the same things from people, um, and a lot of people have the same worries. Um, and I think that what I wanted to do with this session is to just like, address some of those myths head on. Um, so just to get started, I'm not gonna ask anyone to like, put their hands up and like answer questions or anything because it's, you know, 7 p.m. on a Monday night. Um, but I just want you to have a think about like what you might have heard about what's difficult about combining research and clinical careers. If you want to pop something in the chat box, that would be great. Um, and I can again come back to it throughout the session. Um, but otherwise I just want you to have a think about some of the things that might sort of worry you, some of the things you might have heard about what's difficult about it, things that might put you off. Um, and hopefully we're going to sort of address some of those things, like head on throughout the talk tonight. So, first of all, um I wanted to tell you a little bit about myself. Um You know, what qualifies me to be here, telling you what I think about um how research works. Um So that's actually a picture of me when I was still a medical student, um which feels like quite a long time ago now, but also kind of like it was yesterday. So for those of you in the audience who are maybe in the earlier years, it will go by so quickly, I still remember so clearly my first day at medical school walking that theater. Um and I'm a specialty trainee now. So um all of this stuff will be relevant to you um sooner than you think. Um So I studied medicine at King's College London. So I trained in London. Um I did an intercalated degree actually in history of medicine. Um And I found that really interesting and that was sort of my first exposure really to research. I hadn't really been interested in research before that. I sort of thought, oh, you know, it's all like clinical trials or being in a lab and I'm, I'm not really interested in that. II came into medicine because I wanted to work with people. Um And whilst it's, you know, super cool that there's all this clinical research going on, it's not something that really sort of um grabbed me when I was in my early years of medical school, but I did this intercalated degree and lots of people said to me, oh, you know, why are you doing History of medicine? It's not really relevant. Um And I can see where they're coming from, but actually I learned so many skills during that year that I wouldn't have got from my medical course. Um And one of those skills was, was doing historical research and, and I found it really interesting, I did a project that involved looking at primary sources in archives and things like that. Um And, and I just thought it was, it was great, but II still wanted to be a doctor. So I went back to medical school, started my clinical years. Um And when I was in my third year of medical school, so after I'd done my intercalation, I did a student selected component where essentially I ended up interviewing some people um and writing a paper. And that was when it kind of occurred to me that there was all of these other types of research. And actually, I was interested in research when that research involved talking to people doing interviews, looking at the things that they said and kind of coming up with conclusions that way rather than um you know, working in a lab or whatever. And that was when I first sort of got exposure to the type of research that II now do, which is qualitative research Um And a lot of my research expertise is actually within the education um education side of things. So I've done a lot of work around widening access to medicine, supporting widening access students when they get to medical school. Um So that's how I came to sort of be interested in research. Um I was lucky enough to um be appointed to an academic foundation program here in Newcastle. So I moved to Newcastle um when I was going to my foundation years because there's a really good education research unit here. Um And then at the end of my foundation program, I was also very lucky to be appointed to an NIH R funded academic clinical fellowship role. Um And I'll tell you a bit more about the sort of NIH R pathway for um integrated clinical academics later on. Um But essentially, they are posts that are 75% clinical and 25% research. So I spend one day a week doing research at the moment and that will last throughout my basic training up until the end of ST three. So that's why I'm here basically. And that's like a little bit of my story and you'll hear a bit more about some of the other things that I've done um throughout my career as we go through. Um But I just wanted to kind of give you an idea of what my background is. Um And, and, and why I'm here basically telling you what I think. Um And it is what I think. Um So it's, it's not 100% gospel, but um these are kind of from my experiences. So as you will have just heard one of the big myths that I think immediately needs to be addressed is that you need to love statistics and numbers in order to do research and especially in order to do research in O and G. So in and G, there's absolutely incredible clinical research going on. Um And there's some really big units, so particularly Manchester and Liverpool have got some really ex excellent um clinical research facilities and clinical research units that do basic sciences. Um London is a big center for clinical trials. Um There are other places in the country where um there's really good facilities for clinical research in, but clinical research isn't the only thing that's out there if you're interested in doing research, but you're not necessarily sure whether you like being in a lab or whether you want to do be involved in clinical trials. There's lots of other types of research that are available to you. Um So this is really not an exhaustive list of the types of research that there are, but there's obviously basic science wet lab and some of you may have done intercalated degrees in biomedical science subjects where you've done projects in the lab and some people really enjoy that and find that really interesting. There's obviously clinical research, um all the way from big, you know, nationwide international clinical trials um down to smaller sort of case studies and case reports that often you might be able to do as a student or a junior doctor with a bit of support from a senior one, really important type of research which um I think not a lot of people maybe talk about is um doing systematic reviews and meta analyses. Um Obviously, you probably you guys will have taught that the sort of gold standard for research is a meta analysis of randomized controlled trials. Um And there are people who are experts in doing those kind of reviews. So again, that's sort of, you know, a little bit further away from actively being involved in setting up clinical trials. But actually, it is super important and there's a lot of really interesting like methodological theory about how you do those analyses. So that's really cool as well. Um And then you've got the kind of research that I do, which is qualitative research, which under that banner, there is so many different things you could do, you could do interviews, focus group surveys. There's loads of really cool stuff that comes from psychology research and education research where um you can use these really interesting methods to get data and analyze it. So there really is something for everyone. So if you are a person who has maybe done a review or a project in a lab and you're sort of thinking, well, I wasn't really sure that was for me. So, research isn't for me. That's definitely not true. There is something for everyone. Um, and it may take a few, trying a few different things before you find what's for you. Um But that's like, totally, ok as well. So I tried all sorts of different things when I was in my early years of medical school. I did a couple of reviews. I did one wet lab project. Um I did like quite an interesting, like narrative review um in O and G in sort of pregnancy and undocumented migrants. Um But none of those things really like captured me. Um It wasn't until I started doing this qualitative research that um I sort of got really enthusiastic about it. Um So that's kind of the types of research that you might get involved in. Um Here's myth number two is that you personally need to come up with all the ideas for the research. Um And you need to have loads of original ideas. Um And if you haven't got those ideas, then you're not going to be able to do a research project. Now, this is totally untrue. So firstly, you know, most researchers work in big teams, some people work in international teams. Most people work at least within a national network. So especially when you're a very junior. Um when you're a student, a foundation doctor in your junior years of specialty training, it's unlikely that you'll be coming up with those ideas and leading on those projects. That's kind of something that comes after you've maybe done a phd or you're getting a bit more senior in your role. So you will be working as part of a team. And that's not to say that if you've, if you've got a brilliant idea and you want to, um, you know, do a specific project that that's not possible, it 100% is possible. Um But often you will be, you will start out by helping people with small parts of their projects. So you may be asked to um you know, do a bit of data collection or you may be asked to review a certain percentage of papers that are going into a systematic review. Um Or you may be asked to write a section of a paper um or help with the analysis, not necessarily sort of lead the whole project. Um So that's how you kind of get started in research. You start by doing little bits and pieces of sort of other people's um projects and you get support from them. Um And then as you become more experienced and more senior, you may start having your own ideas, doing some of your own smaller projects supported by seniors. Um And then you do get to the point where, you know, you need to kind of keep a list of ideas of things that you're interested in that might be um something that's a project going forwards. Um And I've just listed a few ways that sort of myself and colleagues that I know have come up with ideas for research projects. So as I mentioned earlier, interesting cases that you see in the hospital as a student or as a foundation doctor. If you see something that's interesting, always approach a consultant and say, I thought that was a really interesting case for XYZ reasons. Is there any chance you were thinking about doing a case report? And could I help with that? Now, literature reviews, I think is something that sometimes people are tempted to cut corners with. But actually keeping abreast of the literature in your area is super important. And that is where a lot of ideas come from because you bounce off the projects that other people have been doing. If you can possibly go to conferences, that's a really good idea as well. You can present your research as a poster or um as an oral presentation. Um if you're lucky enough to get selected for that, but you also get the opportunity to just sort of chat to people. Um And my experience has been that when I've been interested in research that people have been doing, they've been super flattered for me to come up to them at a conference and say, oh I read your paper and I really enjoyed it because as researchers, once you get that paper out there, you don't really necessarily know how much people are engaging with it. Um So it's actually really nice to hear from people about work that you've put out there. Um So it can be nerve wracking at first to sort of approach people. But um in my experience, everyone is always really keen to, to hear um that people have been engaging with their work. Um And as I say, you know, discussions with other researchers, collaborations and networking um are really important and some people find that social media is good for that. Um You can tell that this is a slightly older slide because it still says Twitter, not X, I don't know how useful Twitter is becoming at the moment, but certainly things like linkedin um making sure that you're sort of starting to tap into that network of other researchers. Um And if you work in a small specialty like OBS and Gynae, you will start to get to know people. Um I know people like from across the country, I think I know like all the other G A CF because there's only a few of us. Um And it's really nice to have those networks and chat about the work that people are doing and that's how you kind of get ideas for things that you might maybe do a project together um or get involved in something that someone else is doing. Um So that's really important as well for sort of research careers in any specialty. Um But particularly in O and G because we are quite a, um, you know, we're a relatively small specialty compared to say, you know, general medicine or general surgery. Um And, and we have quite a small community. It's really important to think about like making those, those networks and those connections where you can. So the other thing you can do is have a little look at the nice guidelines. They actually have research recommendations. So, um particularly in obs and Gynae and particularly in obstetrics and emergent er maternity settings, there are lots and lots of the nice recommendations that we have that are not based on the highest quality evidence. Um And a lot of this is obviously being addressed by big sort of research consortiums and things like that. But there's no reason why if you have the opportunity to take some time to do a project, you couldn't go on to the nice guidelines, have a little look. Um and, and see what they recommend and see if there's anything that um interests you, that you might, it might be feasible for you to do some work around. Um the other place to go that I think is really, really good. Um Although I'm slightly biased because I've worked with them in the past is the James Lind Alliance. Um They're a really interesting organization who um essentially they have these really big um networks of patients in the public and professionals. Um And they do these huge exercises to um set priorities in different areas. Um And one of the things that I'm interested in in my um sort of the more clinical side of my research is miscarriage care. Um and experiences of people who are having um losses of pregnancies, whether that be ectopic pregnancies or terminations of pregnancies. Um And there's really, the James Alliance has done a priority setting exercise with patients around miscarriage care. Um And there's lots of ideas for questions that are important to patients. Um So it's really interesting to go and have a little look. And as you can see, they've got like a huge range of things that they focus on. It's not just obs and Gynae. Um but they do have several obs and Gynae and sort of reproductive health themed priority setting exercises too. So it's really, it's, it's really cool. I think what they do is really cool. So I always mention them um just around sort of research priorities and stuff. So my number three and I think this is a really tricky one is that you have to know lots of people to get opportunities for projects. And as I said earlier, it is, um you know, if you're wanting to have a clinical academic career in Sung Gina, it can be important to do some networking. However, obviously, when you're very first starting out in your career. Um, it's difficult to know how to do that. And also you've just not had that time in, you know, if you're a student or, um, a foundation doctor, you've just not had that time to meet people. So it's absolutely not true that you need to know everyone, um, to get projects, there's lots of different things that you can do to get involved in research at any stage. Um, And I would say I would just reiterate as well. It's never too late. Um Even people who are sort of in the middle of their careers or a new consultants, there's opportunities to get involved in research, even if that's not something that you've done before. Obviously, I anticipate that most of you guys are students. So there are things you can look into like summer research placements and internships, use your student selected components or your student modules. I don't know exactly what they call them at Sheffield. Um But those modules for me were so instrumental in helping to decide what sort of things I was interested in. Um I, almost all of my student selected components were OBS and Gynae related. Um apart from one that I did on the neonatal unit, and that was only because I felt that would be useful for OBS and Gynae. Um But, you know, for a lot of those, a lot of those modules, I had to write an essay at the end anyway, so I may as well turn that into a paper that can go somewhere or submit it for a prize. Um And, you know, really making the most of those things that you have to do for medical school anyway. Um I think intercalated degrees are a bit of a tricky subject at the moment just because of all the changes to um sort of training requirements and things. But I had an amazing time on my intercalated degree. Um, and I would, I would recommend it if it was something that you wanted to do. Um, and there was, you know, a course that you did, I want to do because I really got a lot out of that additional year. Um And it was just really, really good for like my well being as well because it was a year out of the medical course, it was a lot less intense. Um, and it just gave me some time to sort of reflect on like being in the early years of med school and what had been, what had been challenging for me. Um, so they can be really useful, sort of going forwards as well in terms of sort of other things that you can do is that you can just ask people when you're on placement. Um, and they'll always be happy to try and direct you to someone. Um, it might not be them that is the person who is in charge of research or audit or whatever at the hospital, they might have to send you on to someone else who will then send you on to someone else. But it may lead to something and it's like, really straightforward. So it's worth thinking about um thinking about some of your medical societies as well. You've got your obs and Gynae, you've obviously got a very active obs and Gynae society, which is great. We didn't at kings when I was there. Um But you may have other societies like academic medicine societies. Um People who are running like inspire grants. Um and just sort of keeping abreast of things. I always advise people who want to know how to, you know, get involved in research is just make sure you're actually reading like any newsletters that the med school is sending out, there might be information about opportunities. Um And you'd be surprised how many people don't even open those emails. Um So it's worth having a really sort of um having a really in depth read of them to make sure you're not missing any opportunities that might be interesting. The Royal College of OBS and Gynae of also offers a number of prizes um quite a few of which are specifically for students. So it's worth again having a little look at their website and just making a note of if the um if the prizes aren't open yet, just make a note of when they were open last year and have a little look around that time. Um, and, and see if they're open and what their sort of questions are. Some of them are essay prizes. There's a couple that are sort of case presentation prizes and there's some elective prizes as well. Um, and, you know, that looks really good on your CV. And sometimes you can maybe, you know, use something that you've done at med school anyway for it. So it's worth sort of keeping abreast of those things. Um There's also a number of other um places that you can go to sort of get opportunities. So, um there is this organization called Remarks. Um and they basically like flag these like projects. I've never actually done a project through here. Um But my colleague, Alice, who um helped with the first iteration of this talk has had successful sort of publications from approaching people on here and they should give you like a really good, um sort of blurb where it tells you exactly what they want you to do, how long they think it's gonna take. Um And what the out, you know, what your expected output will be. So it's worth maybe having a look on there and seeing if there's anything um that, that kind of takes your fancy and it doesn't necessarily have to be on and related. If there's something else that interests you, then um there's always transferrable skills. So it's not, it's absolutely not the case that if you've done projects in other areas that they're not relevant to and, you know, there's always something that can be transferrable there. So you don't have to sort of theme everything you do around or even if that's your interest, there might be other things that um you think could be cool or um or an interesting opportunity or help you develop skills that you haven't already got. Um So kind of keep an open mind when you're, when you're looking for opportunities as well. There's also the Cochrane task exchange, it's very similar. So there's um particularly if you have a second language. Um There's lots of translation tasks. Um And often these tasks will be like helping with like big systematic reviews. They'll ask you to review a few papers, fill in their data collection form. Um And some of them will offer you like acknowledgements or authorships um based on how much work you're doing sort of towards that project. Um So again, that's, you know, anyone can approach people. If you feel that you have the skills to do it, then um you, there's no sort of limitation. It doesn't matter if you're a student or um you know what level you're at, so that can be really useful as well. So the Wellcome Trust has some vacation scholarships. Um I think they might have slightly changed how they do them um in the last couple of years. But I know people who have done some of these scholarships and they've been really, really useful for them. So they, you get some funding um and you are supported to do a project. Um So that's sort of worth keeping an eye on as well if you're in the early years of medical school, I think it's only for people who are below third year. Um But also your own medical school may have um vacation projects and vacation internships which offer a bit of funding as well, which is always really useful. Um So that's another, another option to maybe have a little look at. Um So yeah, here's some of the things that I've done. Um So, one of the things that I did when I was at medical school was I was very involved with my like student newspaper, um the G KT Gazer, it's just up here. Um So I was the editor in chief of the student newspaper um which, you know, it was something that I did because I enjoyed it. Um And, and I never got any like p meds, like publications from it or anything like that. Um But I really enjoyed doing it, but actually that led to um I saw an opportunity to go and work at the B MJ. I applied for it. I got it and that was basically on the back of this experience that I had of running this magazine um at medical school. And the job at the B MJ was a huge opportunity. I um published lots of things in the B MJ. I ran B MJ student. I had the opportunity. This is me um giving a talk at hee about our B MJ student podcast. Um So that just gave me like a huge amount of experience um and confidence and a lot of sort of stuff under my belt, which was really, really useful going into an academic foundation program, particularly um in an area that I wasn't used to where I had to kind of hit the ground running and get started so that I wasn't so that I was making the most of the time and the support that I had, I became involved during COVID in something called the Med Collaborative, um which is a national organization that um basically empowers students and junior doctors to do education research in their local areas. Um And we did two big surveys about how um medical education was changing during COVID. Both of them were published in um the sort of big medical education journals that we have. Um And I presented some of them at um international conferences as well. Um So it just kind of shows you like as an example, like something that I just did because I enjoyed it, which was um you know, my involvement with the G KT gazette led on to, to other things. And, you know, I think it's really important that um you do things that you find interesting. Um And you don't sort of go into projects because you want a publication or you want a presentation and it's not necessarily something that actually is your passion. Um Because that's just gonna make it, like, really difficult for you to find the, um you know, the, the inspiration and time to get on with that project because you're always just gonna be thinking like, oh, I don't wanna do this. Um So it's really important when you're thinking about the opportunities that you have because, you know, you're busy, you're at medical school, some of you probably have jobs. Um You have caring responsibilities, there's lots of other things on your plate. So you need to make sure that you're prioritizing and, and only take you on things that are really gonna either improve your skills or you're really passionate about or are working with people that are, you think are really good. Um Because that's a huge consideration as well, who you're working with, who your team is. Um And a lot of that again comes with experience. Um And you will find your tribe of people who are interested in similar things. Um But sometimes it takes a few, um You know, you may have a few projects that you're disappointed with and you think, oh, I wish that I could have done XYZ differently, but that's really important to, you know, that's how you learn. Um And you should learn something from every project, even if you never got anything out of it at the end, um it should teach you something and that's super important as well as those sort of like tangible outputs that I think we're often very focused on as metics. So at this point, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about the integrated clinical academic training pathway because obviously this is one of the opportunities that you do have um to get involved in research in, I suppose more of a structured way once you're a qualified doctor. Um So this image is taken directly from the NIH R um the National Institute for Health Research um website and it kind of outlines the the training pathway that they have. Um that is their sort of funded route through combined clinical and academic training. Um Now, I just want to underline that this is not the only way to combine um working clinically and research. There are lots and lots of other ways to do it um particularly now with the growth of clinical fellow jobs. Um And uh you know, lots of people, especially in our specialty and g are work less than full time for a number of different reasons. Um But you know, there are lots of other opportunities to be involved in research alongside your clinical work. This is just a particular way that is available to you and is also what I'm doing. So, you know, I have the experience to talk about it. Um So basically, the way that the integrated clinic, academic training works is that um you would do your F one and F two. And within that time, there is potential that you may be interested in doing an academic foundation program. Now, I'm not gonna go massively into what that consists of and um you know, the the application arrangements for that because firstly, they're, they're potentially changing. Um And secondly, I could do a whole talk about that. Um But essentially the idea of the academic foundation program is that in most areas, you would get four months during your f two. So one of your f two blocks would be an academic placement. Um and you would get put into a team or um assigned a supervisor and you would be able to either do a small project of your own or be involved in, in a larger project that your supervisor was doing. And that could be in a number of different specialties that could be across a number of different types of research. Um It's very, very dependent on the area um in which you do that, that job. Um And you supervise it and how, how things pan out. So that's kind of the first step, although just to reiterate again, like you do not have to have done the academic foundation program in order to take the next step to the um academic training pathway, it's not a prerequisite um, and I don't know what the actual stats are but I know, I mean, I think I know about equal people who did a FP and didn't do a FP or S FP. Sorry, it's called now. Um, I was the last year that it was still a FP. So you have to forgive me that. Um, I still call it a FP. Um, so at your, the end of your F two, once you've got your, um you know, all your foundation competencies and they say you, you know, you can go into your specialty training. Now, um that would be the point where you would apply for what I'm currently doing, which is an academic clinical fellowship. Now, these are competitive jobs. There's not that many of them, they are funded by the NIH R which means that your salary gets paid by the NIH R rather than a hee. So they're very, very sought after, but they are absolutely not impossible to get these jobs. Um And there's more and more being funded every year, which is really, really positive and there's more and more being funded in different places as well. So I know for instance, in my area, Newcastle has always had lots of a CF places. But for the first time, this year, Sunderland University, which is a new medical school, has also got five A CF places and we anticipate that, that will just grow and grow and grow, which is amazing. So the academic clinical fellowship is for three years. Um So it lasts throughout your basic training and it is 75% clinical and 25% academic. Um So some people do that the way that I do, which is um one day a week and I'll come on to why I've chosen to do it like that when I speak more specifically about obs and Gynae um and research. But some people also choose to take it in a block or you can actually take like um nine months. So you could sort of save it all up and do nine months in ST three, I know someone who's done that as well. Um So it's really, really flexible and you will be able to identify your own supervisor. Um And that's when you start getting sort of a bit more freedom to start leading on bits of your projects and things like that. Um And you also alongside that, go through your clinical training. So after ST three, the intention of this pathway is that there will potentially be the opportunity to do a phd. Um So most people who go through sort of step, step wise um will do their phd after ST three and then they come back into the training program at um ST four and above as a clinical lecturer, which is 50% academic and 50% research. Now, as I say, not everyone follows this pathway and even those who start on this pathway may not follow it in this sort of linear fashion. Um But I just wanted to give you a bit of a brief outline so that you knew what the opportunities were in terms of these sort of formalized posts. So just a bit about like why you would choose to train in this way. Um I think there's a lot of like mythology around it and again, you know, um lots of sort of good and bad ideas floating around about being an aca academic doctor. Um But you need to be interested. I don't know, it sounds, it sounds like silly, doesn't it? But um you really do need to be interested and not just wanting, you know, one of these jobs because it's very prestigious and, um you know, you're gonna get some extra time not doing clinical work because you, you will be expected to, to produce work. Um, you know, academic work during these, these times. It's really great cos you get protected research time. I have never been asked to work clinically on my research day because it's so well demarcated and the NIH R are so firm about the fact that this is what you're getting paid for. Um So that's really, really good and it allows you to, you know, not spend so much time outside of work. Um Although to be honest with, but I do spend quite a lot of time outside of work anyway, but we'll come on to work life balance in a minute. Um There's opportunities to undertake higher degrees diplomas. PG Certs, as I say, the intention is that it leads you up to a phd. Um And most importantly, really, like you, you contribute to, to the body of scientific knowledge, right? Like you write a paper, you put it out. Someone else might cite that paper, someone else might use that paper to um you know, come up with an idea of their own and eventually one day that might trickle down and have an impact on patients. And that's the reason, that's the main reason why you should choose clinical academic training and because you want to do that. Um and it's not for everyone, like lots of people are not interested in research and, you know, are able to use research in their day to day lives of clinicians, but don't want to do that and that's totally fine. Like not everyone has to do that. Um But, you know, if you are really passionate about stuff like that, then clinic aca academic training is something that you might consider. So having just said that I do spend quite a lot of time outside of work, doing research. Um I just want to address myth four is that you need to like basically be doing work all of the time um in order to be a successful clinical academic, which is absolutely not true. Um So looking after yourself is really, really important, making sure that you've got a reasonable work, life balance is really, really important, making sure that you're not burning out is really, really important. And, you know, specifically for O and G again, I'm gonna touch on that, um, in a, in a little minute. But, uh, you know, and G can be a tough specialty. Um, it does have a heavy on call rotor. It is very, it's quite a physical specialty, which is something that I hadn't really, I thought that much about before I started my training. But you, you know, you, you, it can be quite physical with some of the things that you're doing. Um, your instrumental deliveries can, can be quite physical. You are standing often for a lot of the day if you're operating, you know, you really need to make sure that you're, you're looking after yourself and not spending too much time. Um, you know, focusing on, on work outside of the times when you're, you know, at uni or at work once you're qualified. So in terms of like some of the advice that I would have about, you know, getting output, but whilst also making sure that you're staying well, is definitely making sure that if you're going to do a research project, like you and your supervisor, like click basically, and it's really difficult to describe it in any other way. And again, like I kind of said earlier, it may take a few iterations or it may take a few different supervisors before you find the one that's really, you know, that you think is gonna get the best out of you. But it's really important that they have like similar academic interests. It doesn't have to be exactly the same. Um, but expertise in things that you would really like to learn how to do. Um, and the ability to also refer you on to other people if they don't have that expertise is also really important. And just someone who's like supportive and you feel like you could actually talk to them. I think the nice thing um you know about uh for, for me, about my academic work is that in my clinical work, I've always been assigned a supervisor. Um And I've never had any problems with that. But, you know, sometimes you, sometimes you have one you really get on with and you're like, oh yeah, this is great and then sometimes you have one that's a bit more like maybe quite hands off or, you know, not that interested. Um But I chose my academic supervisor or we chose each other really. And, you know, that makes for a really, really good supportive relationship. So, so that's really important. I think being realistic about your time frames is super important as well. And things do take a long time in research and I started a project two years ago and I've just submitted the paper and I'm not disheartened about that at all. Like that is a realistic time frame for how long things work in my particular area of research. And particularly considering, you know, how much time I have to devote to it because it's not my full time job. Um So just being realistic about like what you can achieve in time frames, not overstretching yourself. Um saying no to things if you don't feel like they're gonna be useful for you um is really important. And I think sometimes or the experience I had was that when I was more junior, it was much more difficult to say no, because I wasn't really sure what was going to be good and what wasn't. But as you get more experienced, you learn to sort of um you learn what questions to ask about projects you learn to read between the lines a little bit and think, OK, well, why do they not have someone to do this already? Um And, and a lot of that just comes from experience but um you know, making sure that you're being realistic about the amount of things that you can do is really important. Um As I kind of mentioned earlier, trying to get multiple things out of each project. If you're doing something at uni submit it to, you know, write an abstract and submit it to a conference, the worst that could happen is they say no and you submit to a different conference and they probably say yes and you know, be bold because it's, you'd be surprised like I do market, abstract marketing for uh I've done abstract marketing for a couple of conferences this year and um sometimes the, the bar is pretty low. So, um so, you know, your, your chances of, of getting uh a poster presentation or something like that are, are really quite high as long as you submit and get involved in stuff that you're passionate about. Um And you know what I'm, what I do is every couple of months, I sort of review all of the things that I'm doing. And I think, ok, actually, what skills am I developing from doing? XYZ? Um Is this still working for me if it's not? Do I need to change the amount I'm involved? Do I need to walk away from this? Like, what changes do I need to make in order to make this work better? Because my time is precious and important. Um making sure you're looking after yourself doing things that you enjoy. Um And again, like good teams and good support. Um and, and you know, working with people who are reliable um is really important as well. And again, sometimes it will take a few sort of teams where things don't quite work and you learn a little bit from that and then you move on to the next team and things don't quite work in a different way. Um And, you know, if you're having any sort of major problems, particularly as a student or a junior doctor, then you need to be escalating that. But, um, sometimes it's, you know, it's not that deep. Um So you just sort of move on to the next thing, use that learning and the next thing. Uh So here's some of the other things that I've done. Um, whilst being a senior medical student and uh foundation doctor and a specialty trainee. Um So, uh one of the things I really like doing outside of work is, is writing poetry. So I've had like quite a few poems like published online and stuff like that. Um which is quite cool and it's something that I do to like, help me reflect on um my work as a junior doctor to be honest. Um So that's been a really nice, like creative output for me. Uh I've run the Great North Run twice, which is quite good from someone who used to hide in the changing rooms to avoid having to play netball when she was at school. Um And I've got like my family and my friend, this isn't my baby, this is my sister's baby. But um that's my niece. Um and she's really cute and I love her and I love to spend time with her. Um And I got married before I was uh before I started f one as well. So, you know, you need to make time for these other things in your life. Otherwise you will, you know, you, you'll be burnt out before your career even starts. So, the very last thing I just wanted to touch on, um obviously, because we're talking sort of more specifically about O and G um is that you can't combine research with a surgical specialty. And this is a, this is something that I find really interesting because there are plenty of ge general surgeons, um and orthopedic surgeons and ophthalmologists who are doing integrated clinical academic training. There is absolutely no reason why you cannot combine research and a surgical specialty. There are probably additional considerations that you need to have um going into that career in a surgical specialty. So, one of the things that I thought about a lot um before I started my academic clinical fellowship was how I was gonna take my academic time and I got advice from various different people and different people said different things. Um and I spoke to the person who's gonna be my supervisor about it and I said that I wanted to trial for a few months for the first few months doing one day a week. Um And, you know, some people had said to me like, oh, it's really difficult when you do one day a week because you don't really get into the work. Um And, you know, you should take a block instead, but actually I'd done a block in my foundation years, I'd done a four month block and I missed clinical work. Um, and I, I felt nervous when I went back because I hadn't been working clinically for four months and it was, it was, it was fine. Like I never had any trouble clinically. Um, but I said, I think that I know myself well enough that I think I should do one day a week. Um, because I'm learning a new specialty, I'm learning all the sort of initial like procedures and stuff. Um And obs and Gynae is a specialty where you really do kind of hit the ground running. They get you doing like, you know, they get you scrubbing for sections from your first day, really by the end of your ST one year, you should be able to do a basic section. Um, so I didn't want to then have like three months off and then come back and sort of be at the beginning again. Um, and it's worked really well. So I think that was just sort of really having an honest, think about what was going to be best for me and not necessarily listening to like everyone's advice, um, particularly people who are in different specialties in terms of balancing things, sort of week to week and day to day. Um, it can be tricky and particularly weeks where I have like heavy on calls. So, like, I've just been on nights for four nights. Um, and you know, sometimes the emails do pile up. Um, but I'm a ii always just like, put an hour office on and I'm like, I'm a night, I won't be replying to you until I finish my nights. Um, so, you know, there's ways to sort of like, manage people's expectations of you as well. Um, and, you know, everyone that I've met in Au GYA has been absolutely thrilled that there's research trainees in Au GYA because there's not that many of us. Um, and we need a research workforce going forwards. We are in a specialty that has had huge, huge problems, has had multiple investigations on the side of the maternity things has got, you know, ongoing issues with patient safety in, you know, in maternity and also, you know, issues in gynecology as well with waiting lists and, um, you know, lots of conditions that are very, very common, which we don't have many treatment options for like endometriosis menopause care. You know, it's a really research, there's a lot of potential for research in Obs and Gynae. And we need people to come through who have got those skills to be able to answer those questions as well as practicing as Obs and Gynae doctors because without having the practice, you don't have the understanding of where the problems are. Um, so what I would say is if anyone tells you that you can't be a surgeon and do research, they are absolutely wrong as long as you have reasonable hand eye coordination, um you will be totally fine and you'll be able to learn how to operate and fine. So that's everything for me. Um I've hopefully left like 10 minutes for like questions or comments or anything. Um I'm also very happy if anyone wants to get in touch with me. Um You can email me at my Newcastle email. It's just Anna dot Harvey um at newcastle.ac.uk or you can get in touch with me on Twitter as well. Um If I go back to the beginning, I think I've had my Twitter. Um mm um Yeah, that's my Twitter handle or X or whatever people are calling it now, everyone I know still calls it Twitter. So um so yeah, um I hope that's been useful. Um If anyone has any questions or anything they they wanted to say or any experiences they've had that they wanted to share like you can either pop them in the chat or I assume that you can talk. I don't know. Um I think they should be able to but otherwise yeah, if anyone's got any questions, please feel free to put it in the chart. Um Yeah, and I think this has been recorded. So um I have like access to that as well if you want to go back and look at anything. Yeah, it will be available on demand. So if you do need any extra help, you could probably go through the slides. Well, if no one, if no one's got any questions, I'm, uh, if I've answered everyone's questions already, um, I'm very happy to, uh, give you five whole minutes back of your time this evening. Um, yeah, so if no one's got any questions, um, then thank you so much. That was really, really helpful, um, very useful. And, um, yeah, if anyone's just a reminder that, um, there's a feedback form at the end of the session. Um If anyone does want a certificate of attendance, then please feel free to fill it out and then yeah, it would be great if I could get some feedback from my portfolio as well because it never ends guys. There's exams. I've got to do an exam in July. You still have to do a portfolio forever and ever and ever so. Um Yeah, great. Well, thanks so much for having me and we should not see anyone but um yeah, and I hope the rest of your series goes well, thank you. It was such a useful talk, honestly. It was so interesting. Oh, good. Well, thanks so much. Thank you. Bye bye.