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Okay, so All right, you come back out of the slide show. There we go. Okay. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Brian Conway. So I have a number of rolls, and I think that's one thing to take into account for those. Are you thinking of careers in clinical academia? I am a senior lecturer within the university, but also an honorary consultant Nephrologist in the Royal in February. I am the director of the Southeast and indeed the Scottish Clinical Academic Foundation Program. And also the inspire lead for the university as well. And I'm also the module lead for the renal module. A year, five curriculum. So probably most of you will get to know me one way or another through one of the many hats that I have here within the university. So today I'm just gonna come really with particularly the academic foundation program had talked a little bit about clinical academic careers with a bit of a focus on on the first run on the ladder. If you like the academic foundation program, um, hopefully talk for about 25 minutes or so, so there's plenty of time for questions and discussion afterwards as well. I can't get them in this screen mode, see any questions as they come in. So maybe we'll, we'll save them and we'll come to them at the end. But feel free to shout out any questions if you want, when we go along as well. So most of what I'm going to be talking about is is if you like the Joint University Post. So roughly in most cases, 50% clinical academia and 50% clinical work, Um, but it's very important to say that that's not the only way that clinicians gain an interest in research activities. So I think clearly all clinicians need to be research aware, Um, in terms of the coated pandemic in particular, there was lots where we've never seen the coated virus. At this time three years ago, there was lots of new investigations that you might have done for it. Lots of new treatments then started to come along. Reviews of the different therapies. You're getting different guidelines coming out from different authorities as well. So it was could emphasize really how being research aware is is almost prerequisite for any clinician working within the NHS. some clinicians in the N. H s are a bit more than just a wear and are actually research active. And this, maybe in their spare time, is up that often the case. Or it may be that they can get a couple of what we call pas or programs activities. So a program of activity in a consultant job plan is essentially a morning or an afternoon so well, some of my colleagues would have maybe two programs activities or one full day, which they can devote. The research that might be supervising students doing some of their own research. And that typically is either clinical or data orientated research rather than basic science research, which often needs a bigger time component really to do that. And then there's the research lead time researchers, which I am one of as well. So that's the full time clinical academic post for your joint post between the university and the N. H s. But it's really the university that is the lead in terms of your salary. So I'm going to talk really mostly about the research lead career pathway, and this is a summary, if you like of the academic career path way that you can but follow towards getting a position in in the university. Now it's important to say this is just a pathway. There's a bit more structure in it than there was when I was starting out. I didn't even think I wanted to be a clinical academic until I was well into my specialist training, actually. So just because it's important to say that you don't absolutely need to do any of these steps on the way through and there's many different ways to end up being a clinical academic. But most of you are already aware then of inspiring atrium and some of the students societies that are involved in research and undergraduate. You've got the academic foundation program during the foundation program. Beyond that, there is, as I say, a different range of roots that you can take. Um, I'll come back and talk a little bit about some of those routes in the core and the specialist training, and towards the end, you get hopefully towards the end of the tree towards the big fellowships where you get four and five year rewards from big funding bodies, charitable or or the welcome trust for MRC well, and those lead to a tenure, which is what is a secure position salary position within the university. And typically those happen very late in the specialist training and into consultant training. We'll come back and talk a little bit about the right hand path of the clinical academic pathway. But I'll start really with the first one, which is the academic foundation program, and really talk about Scotland wide and then specifically about the program here in the South East. So, really, the foundation program is for those who might want to double and think that they may have, uh, an interest in doing clinical academic medicine. And that can be research or teaching. And there is indeed one leadership post as well in in the Scottish program, and the programs are a little bit different according to which machinery. So in the Southeast we have 15 posts, and, uh, nine of those have a research block built in. So that's in second year, where you take a four month period away from clinical environment during the 95 period. You still do some on call, and that allows you to really get focused in on a research project. And for the remaining six people, they have the option of having one session so morning or an afternoon per week equivalent to do some long longitudinal research. And that might be best suited for more clinically orientated projects. Whereas any lab based projects having the four month research block could be really helpful is trying to do anything in the lab on one afternoon. A week is really challenging, so that's the structure we have here. It's kind of two different approaches there. In the west of Scotland, all 15 post their have two sessions per week of protective research time in the east of Scotland, there's only six posts, and they're divided between research posts, teaching post and the leadership post. And again, they all have four months protected time, uh, in each of those posts. And in the north of Scotland, it's about 50 50 between research and teaching, and again, they all have a four month block that there as well. So thinking just in the Southeast program, um, f Y one really is the focus really is just finding your feet in the wards and being a doctor so it can be a bit of a shock to the system. The transition from medical school to becoming an f Y. One. Um, so an f Y one really is just allowing you to find your feet as a clinician. And, um, you know, that's a fairly stressful time as it is, so there's not much really focus on the research element at that time. Um, you do for 34 months blocks. Typically, there's one in the central hospital, but there's at least one in the peripheral hospital. Actually, to be honest, a lot of the peripheral hospitals and five in border generals and johns are great places to be as an F Y one doctor. They're really super friendly. They're a bit smaller. And also, for instance, if you're doing either a medicine or surgery post there, if if you get to see lots of good stuff, whereas if you're in the Royal Infirmary, a lot of the good specialist stuff is siphoned off into the specialist and you're left with the less interesting stuff in general medicine or surgery. So the peripheral hospital a great place to start off. We do begin to think about research, but focus on developing a project to do when you're in the second year of the foundation program. But right at the start, we meet with all of the people who are coming into the program, get a kind of a feel for what research they've already done, what the research interests are. It could be data science, lab based science, clinical science and maybe think what types, especially their most interested in, is it? It could be a generic, just as interested in surgery or interested in medicine. Or some people know very clearly exactly what, especially they want to go in already at that stage. So it's not a problem if you haven't already worked out exactly what type of doctor you want to be. And thankfully, within the universities, we've got lots of lots of good people who can act as a mentor or supervisor for your project, so we usually suggest few names. Many of you, if you've been in Edinburgh, will already have made links through your undergraduate time to some of the researchers and already have got some people that you might want to think of as a mentor, so we usually eventually work out who your mentor is going to be typically, by the start of right about now, the start of September, the FBI one. Doctors are beginning to come together and and work out who your mentor is, and then we do an application for this research block. That's an F Y, too. So because we have only nine research blocks and there's 15, it wise, not everybody wants the research block. Some people would prefer not to take a full four months away from the clinical environment at that stage when it's still quite early in your career. But it is usually more popular than the number of posts we have available, so it tends to be a competitive process as to who gets the research blocks. It used to be a lot worse. We only had six blocks for 18 academic foundation doctors, so thankfully, we, um, we have now I got two thirds of the people are are able to do a research block, so we usually have a research, uh, block competitive process, where you just put in a 24 of an eight to, uh, size of an A four page. Looking at your applications as to what the project might involve. And then there would be interviews, typically in around November time and on the basis of that way, then decide who gets the research blocks and F y, too. There's no study leave. That's the same in Nephi, one across all of Scotland. Unfortunately in in Nephi one. So an f y two. Then you will have clinical posts and we have a really nice selection. I think of clinical post spread between surgery, medicine and particularly more focusing a surgical medical specialties. Well, psychiatry GP, obstetrics, pediatrics. Really nice range, I think, um, of posts. And if once the research post are allocated, then I meet with everybody again and you get some feedback as to your application process, how well that went. And then we think about what you might want to do in your career. And therefore what, uh, post an F Y two would be helpful and try to make a decision as to your career preference as well. And then I sit down with a bottle of wine over Christmas usually and try and get everybody as close to the preferences that they want for their clinical post as I can and most times it works reasonably well, but there's always some couple of people that get maybe a less high preference post, because I do have to fill every post with in the in the program. Okay, so at the stage of applying for the foundation program, um, some of you are maybe closer to doing this than others, so I'll just touch on the application process. It's Oriole. Is that the online system that you register and you can apply for up to two different academic skills, And I think I can't remember the deadline some of you will know. But it's probably close to the end of this month that the deadline will be. There's a short listing process to get into the interview environment, and that's on the basis, really essentially your CVS, what prizes you've had, what presentations you've done at the national meetings or student meetings. And if you're lucky, you may have a publication or two as well. And all of those gain points towards the short listing. There's also whitespace questions with six questions that you're asked to provide answers for, um, and again, the better your answer, the more points you will get for those as well. And we've changed a little bit this year in terms of the waiting of things. So previous years we are awarded points for having done, uh, be made sayin interpolated degree or or a PhD this year. We have not done that because we felt that those students, maybe who were in universities that didn't offer that for students from less privileged background, you couldn't afford to spend the money to take an extra year out would be disadvantaged. So we've decided not to include point simply for doing a be made sign. That said, I think if you've done a B medicine, you're much more likely to have gained the opportunity to do presentations or publications. So and I think by doing one, you're certainly going to be in a much better place. And we've allocated a little bit more points then on the white space questions as well, just to give people who maybe not much research experience at this point, the opportunity if they're good dude for research to gain some points there. And to be honest, if you have a couple of presentation or two or a publication, that's probably all that's needed to get to the interview stage. If you've done, you know, a reasonably good effort of doing the white space questions and the interviews will be. I think this year at the very end of November we've moved over to online interviews and certainly for this year we're going to continue them being online. And generally there's about four scenarios which will could be a clinical scenario where research scenario or scenario as well. So at least one clinical, and then maybe to research in a teaching scenario that you're asked to provide answers to in the interview. I think it comes to that then will be early in 2023. What are we looking for? Well, clinical acumen is, is an absolute essential is, um, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people applying for the program will have excellent clinical acumen. It's really important, as I say, because in f y two, if you're taking four months away from the war that a really early stage still in your clinical career, you want to make sure that you're really clinically competent. Um, and also there's things that you have to do for your foundation portfolio and If you've got four months away from the wars, it's a bit harder to manage to achieve all of those as well. So you have to be really flying well with your clinical acumen. Clearly an enthusiasm or aptitude for academia. And that can be demonstrated in the fact that you've already done some publications or presentations, which is great. But it also comes very much across the interview as well. I think it's very clear who who can think on their feet and really think about how they, you know, would structure projects if they talk about a research question or or or clinical question as well. Good communicator. It goes without saying as well. We all have to be excellent communicators. And so any ethical knowledge also. But, uh, the F F Y R S F y, I should say, as it is now is not the end of the world. If you don't get on to the S F Y. It's just one way that you can get involved to get a taster. But there's plenty of people who go on the Foundation Academic Foundation program and then decide not to take a career in clinical academia And certainly there's plenty of people who want to do a career in clinical academia. You were not on the Specialist Foundation program, so it's not the end of the world. If you don't get on, you still have the opportunity. If you're based in Edinburgh and your foundation program to speak to lots of clinical academics who will be around the Ward's. You have met them already at medical school, perhaps, and get involved in research. And I'm certainly happy to be contacted if you aren't successful in getting onto the program or my colleague Malcolm helps me out, and we can still pair you up with mentors as well. So you still get some opportunity, though not necessarily the protective time that you would get an F Y two in the Specialist Foundation program. Okay, um, just to touch a little bit more than on further down the academic pathway. Well after the foundation program, most people head off into core training, be that surgical medical psychiatry lab based GP etcetera. And at that point in Scotland, there is a bit of a deficiency. I think in the pathway it's fair to say something. I'm trying to think about how to solve. In England, they have academic clinical fellows. So if you're doing your core training, the academic clinical fellows have 20% protected time to devote to research. So that would be a day a week equivalent. And that's quite useful to to keep your research activity going. Think about how you might do some research and generate some preliminary data towards the next step, which would be applying for Ph. DS in Scotland. We don't have that, unfortunately, and as I say, it's something I think we should work out developing with in Scotland. But I think the the environment is still great and the academic foundation program doctors often I've still got some access to the university facilities, the library, etcetera, software facilities as well, for the first bit after their academic foundation program. There is also a thing called the spreads lectureship in Scotland, which maybe is as close as we have to the A C s at the minute, um, in some deliveries that can be taken pre PhD during your core training, but certainly in Edinburgh, the spreads lectureship is ready for the clinical lectureship at the end of your clinical training after you've done a PhD, so the next step for most people will be to do a PhD or MD, and there's a number of ways of doing that. You can get a stand alone, uh, fellowship from a charity or or the Medical Research Council, for instance. Or there's also a scheme here in Edinburgh the cat scheme, which is kind of a run through scheme. So I'll tell you a little bit about the clinical academic training track of the Cat in Edinburgh. So it's funded by the welcome trust. It's really competitive get on. So you absolutely need to have a specialist training number in your specialty of choice before you can apply. But it's not that you need to be a certain specialty in order to get on to it. It's a very diverse one. So dentists GPS, um, vets, Uh, and actually, I think paramedical staff. You don't even need to be trained as a doctor to get onto the program now as well. So it's a very diverse bunch of people that can apply for that, and it doesn't matter what especially you're interested in, really the application. It's more about you and how competitive. You are in terms of, you know, have you already demonstrated a good attitude for academia through getting publications presentations, and you don't need to have developed a project to get onto the scheme. Really, at that stage is all about you and how good you are as a potential clinical academic. And then you usually in the first year the scheme. You have some protective time to learn about generic research skills. Get to meet some of the clinical academics, and you then developed with them a proposal for doing a PhD. And then you take full time out of your clinical training to do typically a three year PhD project of that on. And that's all, then the funding for that is all absolutely guaranteed through the Cat C, so it's highly competitive. It's great that you know it's almost a four year scheme, and you get a bit of time in that first year to think about your project and learn some clinical skills. And and it's really useful, I think program. But it's not again to be all and end all If you don't get on to that program, you can also do what's called a standalone PhD. So, UM, these are offered by charities. So British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research, UK Kidney Research UK and lots of different specialists, um fields will have charity, and they will have the opportunity to do PhDs and get funding for those as well. So again, if you're interested in a particular, especially, have a chat to any of the clinical academics. Are scientists around the university with track record is supervising, uh, clinical academics and, you know, speak to other people who have been through programs etcetera as well. And you can apply. And at that time it's just slightly different from the from the cat scheme, because it's really not only about you, but also about your project. So you typically go to an interview somewhere in London, and you come with a project that you proposed to do. And they will ask you lots of questions about your project as well as about you to see whether it's a good enough project be awarded a PhD. The spreads lectureship. So, as I say in Edinburgh, these are post PhD, so they give 20% protected times. You return after your PhD in the clinic, but for one day a week. You have protected time for research, and that can be used to write up some papers from your PhD. Often you're scrambling around in the lab and then trying to write up your thesis so trying to get the papers out as well. It can be a challenge to get all that done in three years, but having a little bit of time to to get some papers out. But also think about the future as well. If you're still interested in clinical academia, it is an opportunity to develop some more techniques or preliminary dated towards further fellowship applications. Because there's yet more application process is that you have to go through before you can become, uh, someone who is a tenured, uh within the university. And these are the big scheme at the end. The Intermediate Clinical Fellowship and Senior Clinical Fellowships. And really these are for people who have demonstrated really excellence in their clinical academic path before this, so that they're really competitive. I think NMR See would give out about 10 Intermediate Clinical Fellowships year, whereas probably only two senior clinical fellowships, something similar for welcome trust as well, and Some of the charities also give out the Intermediate Senior Fellowship, but they're expensive. So so, and depending on what failure in it may be that you need to go to welcome our MRC, so these are really competitive processes. But the good news is at the end of those, then usually the university guarantees that they will pay your salary at the end of the fellowship. And most of the time, those are very end of last year. Your special training program or even people take those up while they are early consultant stage as well. So that's pretty much the the career trajectory or pathway. It's more structured than it was previously. But as I say, there's many, many ways to try and navigate that pathway. It is challenging, and I think that's true. Even when you get to, you know, be, uh, an employee of the university like Like you know, there's a lot, lot of ups and lots of goings occasionally in clinical academia as well. So you know it's a game is next, and ladders you get some really, really high. So if you got a senior fellowship, you know you're really shooting the light side, and that leaves gives you a lot of money over a five year period to really develop your research and take it whatever way you like. Unfortunately, occasionally you get grants that aren't don't fly. In fact, more than occasionally probably 20% of grants are funded, I would say so if you're good at writing grants, you're probably going to have a better success rate than that. But certainly for those of you who are high flyers that pass all of your exams, that count was a bit of a shock to the system. Whenever you just, uh, put in a grant. And unfortunately it is rejected. But again, sometimes you get papers that unexpectedly fly in high places like Lance it or whatever as well. So there's some real bonus is in line as well. And of course, there's always a reviewer. Three. Typically, you get three reviewers of every paper or Grant and the first to love it. And then that nasty reviewer. Three. Just when you think things are flying gives you a nasty review and you slide back down again, okay, so in terms of further information, I know the inspired team we're going to be lots of different events on TV and, UM, interview practice in the near future. For those who are going to be applying for the academic foundation program shortly. There's lots of the websites there on the foundation program how to apply in the structure by email there as well. And there's also a website for the cat team as well. So I was going to stop there. I have some slides about what life is like is a clinical academic, but I think maybe we'll just stop at the moment anyway. I can always come back to those later and just take any questions at this stage. Thank you so much, Brian. That was really useful. We'll just open up the floor for questions. If anyone has some, there's already won. The people who don't have publications get in Yes, very much so. As I said, I don't think I do the short list in most years. And when I'm reviewing things, uh, things, I'm pretty sure maybe about half of the people who get short listed for interview would of publications, so at least half so you absolutely don't need a publication is helpful, but it's absolutely not essential. I think usually you know, if you have an oral presentation or a prize or something that gives you an extra point or two, that's probably all you need to get on as long as you've made a reasonable attempt at the White Space questions, there's another question about whether you are not used it the minute for short listing. They cannot come out until we're pretty much already have the interviews, and so they are not used for short listing. I think the only place they might be used is if there's kind of a tie between a couple of people at the very end, because we don't get the spasms roughly around the time of the interview process, so it cannot be used and we include publications they don't have. How bad idea in your application. And it's more challenging, basically, if you can imagine trying to understand what is a publication, because abstracts can come with me and I D s etcetera as well. So it can be a little bit challenging when you're scoring to work out. You know, it takes a while when you maybe 100 and 80 applications to the specialist foundation program, and it's to Scotland wide application process. And it can be a little bit challenging to find out what's an abstract and what a proper sort of paper, if you like, as well. So that is really helpful, because I can then click on and it's easy to see what they are. You can certainly try and put the anything that doesn't have a problem that I d there, but it can be a little bit harder for me to give it a score if it's not very clear exactly where it's been published and at what level the publication is that you can do. A lab based research project without previous lab experience absolutely can. And in fact, what we encourage is that you do something that you haven't done before. So if you've done a lab based project but I don't know anything about the Western blot, you can learn doing a Western blot. Similarly, if you've done only clinically orientated project, you want to get some experience with the lab and see what it's like. That's absolutely fine as well. What I would say is, you know, we're not expecting you to know what your joint allow based techniques, etcetera as well. So I think certainly speaking to your clinical supervisor. If you're trying to get a project together, you'd really rely heavily on them to know what's feasible. Within a four month period, One of the big difficulties in the research projects that we get is they read like PhDs. Almost. It's something that's going to take three years to probably do. People tend to be a bit ambitious, if you like, with what they think they might be able to achieve in a four month block. And publications also include book chapters. Yes, I think they do. Recollection. I think the metrics should be up on the Scottish Foundation website as well as to what they all kinds of as a publication. I think review articles. I think that would be a book chapter, if you like, would be the same as a review article in that context, so they may be don't work quite as highly as an original science based research paper would do. But they do count towards, um, it will get some markers for that. Um, is there any research mythology? Stats focused teaching available while on the program yet, So we have a number of different, uh, opportunities. Uh, many of you know Kevin Penny McLean, who did a series of talks on research methodology. There is also the Clinical Skills Center over in the Western. Also organized is a two day meeting on clinical research, skills or research skills and generally and statistic cetera. How to apply for ethics. You know all the kind of things that you need, And again, it's on option to go on that course. Also, if book champions going through final coughing but not yet published, is there anywhere in the application and it becomes increasingly more challenging because it's very hard to, you know, work out. If, yes, are they ever going to get published or you know it's it's more difficult. The things have not been published. I think it's fair to say, because I can't tell you I'm going to get something into the New England or I'm I'm applying to the New England Journal of Medicine. I can apply, but if it's a completely crap bit of research, I'm not going to get in. So to say that you're going to get something out without being published is a bit more challenging because all of us can easily say that it's impossible for me to know how genuine that's going to be. Unfortunately, so, yeah, Scotland is one unit of application. You know, you pick your your again where you want to be. Which program? The south east, north, etcetera. You can choose which one you want to be in. And then I think it's based on the ranking for the interviews, and you can decide it's decided, you know, some maybe a little bit more popular than others, if you like. And you can also apply to, uh, over in England as well as a Plan B Or maybe where the Plan B as well you know that often is the case. So, actually, if you think of the numbers game on average, maybe 100 and 7800 and 80 apply. Uh, we usually short list about 100 to 100 and 10, roughly speaking. And then there is what did I say 52 or three post. I think available now so some people will turn us down will ask them to come to to us. But actually where their Plan B and they want to go to Cambridge, your imperial or whatever. So, actually, you go a bit further down the the list as well. So although we interview probably twice as many people as we have post available, actually we go a little bit further down the list. So if you get an interview, you have a reasonable chance of getting a post, actually, much better than you will have when you go to do your fellowship interviews, a PhD or or or senior lectureship. And I think in terms of yeah, this is a bit that goes, There's a box with a big black box that goes on at the scenery that I don't necessarily see in terms of. Can you be taken out of the General Foundation Pole? No, I don't think so. I think I mean, at that stage, the academic ones are all awarded ahead of the General Foundation pole, so you will know where you've got two from a very early stage and, you know, before the rest of the foundations, cool poster rewarded my understanding. Yeah, medical teaching opportunities yet so everybody can get onto the Clinical Educator program, which is run in Edinburgh. So there is the opportunity to do that. Uh, some of my trainees of you know, although we say in Edinburgh were very research focused and you know, the specific post for teaching or in Dundee and particularly in Aberdeen, there's many of our trainees have also, um, done quite a lot of education. Certainly one of the trainers this time and did a big program. You might have been at some of the things as well. You know where he was doing on line modules for teaching for, um, students doing their final exams in medical school as well. So yeah, I think we can certainly pair you off with medical education doctors. Um and you know, assist funding, etcetera for that. But you know, we don't routinely see ourselves as providing medical education posts. Generally, there's research posted, but you can also do medical education as well would opposed to that someone else presented. But you're an author of counting the application. There is a scoring system I'm trying to remember, but I think if you're a mid author, you still score a point, even for a poster. So again, that's the scoring. Metrics are better if you get a first author rather than a middle author. And better again if it's an oral man of poster presentation and again similarly with the papers as well. If you're a first author, it's a very high scoring versus the middle author, which is a lower story. If one poster is presented, more than one conference doesn't count more than what I I try to avoid scoring the same poster time and again. I think that's unfair that somebody can take the same piece of research and get, you know, four points. Um, what will count is the best score that it gets. So if you presented it as an oral presentation at a national meeting, that score is higher than if it's supposed to presentation or whatever. So I will certainly give you the highest scoring point for that. Okay, that looks to be the question is beginning to dry up, so up to you as a couple of maybe about five or six lives. Just about life is a clinical academic, and from my perspective of things, happy to share those now if you want, or if everybody wants to go and watch the Champions League football or whatever That's fine as well. Any any thoughts? Um, it would be great to see the slides. And then people sometimes post some questions. Exactly. It won't be any more than about 10 minutes of final slides here. So you really share my screen again? Well, take it down from where we left off. Great. Okay. So just think about some of the pros and cons of life as a clinical academic. Um, to me, one of the best things is every day is different. So that just a snapshot of the diary from last February, I think. And color coded. So blue is my clinical work. Green is my research work. Read is my kind of teaching work Academic foundation in in in orange and blue and inspire So you can see that's the different hats that I have that we told you about right at the start. That may be what one week might look like. No day is the same. Next week was a much more clinically orientated week. I was on the clinic on the awards for acute, uh, nephrology. Bit less time for research that week as well. Quite a bit of teaching that week. Also as well, so every week is different, which is really nice. I think it was a full time finish in for 40 years in the N. H s, where often you're fighting the system rather than working with the system. I think I would find it somewhat dull after a while. I mean, a lot of my colleagues do do other different types of activities. Leadership. A lot of them come in and do teaching as well. Somebody do business more orientated works and Do Ethics Committee is etcetera. So I think a lot of people do have a bit of a portfolio so that they're not doing fully clinical work for the entire 40 years, but certainly clinical academia. That variety is great and even within the research, um, there's a whole lot of different things that you you do. So you know, clearly there's so much comes out in the literature that you have to keep up with, and that can be a real challenge to keep reading and keep yourself up to date, because you need to do that in order to write a grant applications to come up with the ideas, make sure that you're not duplicating something that's just been recently published, for instance, or if you're doing a piece of research and you find that somebody else is probably something similar, you might need to change. Or maybe there's an unexpected publication that you haven't anticipated comes out, and that shoots off a really bright idea about that research on further. So you have to be constantly trying to keep up with the field and then writing and also reviewing grant applications. So if you think there's a three reviewers for every grant, so if you want to do your fair share of reviews, you would really want to be reviewing three grants for every grant that you've written as well. So there's a lot of work and that goes towards the general good of the academic and, uh, community. There's lots of liaising and networking with lots of other researchers, both in academia, but increasingly with companies and lots of the charity research groups are really don't want to just give their funding out to you. They want to use that to maximize opportunities for their, um, their disease of interest if you like, so they want you often to to get matched funding from other companies, etcetera as well, and get investment from every everywhere else. So you're you're constantly trying to network and liaise with other people. And that's also brilliant for research as well. Because typically you need big numbers of patients in clinical trials or data studies as well. Um, so often that's that's really beneficial to the research. Again, you need to write ethics to get a degree. And if you want to do clinical trials, but also if you want to do animal studies as well, there's lots of different ethics that you have to get through. Once you've done your research, then you have to to write the papers and get them out as high impact journal as possible and again similar. You have to also do your fair share of reviewing other people's papers as well. Clearly, I supervise students postdocs of research assistant's as well, and especially with the post doc and research assistant. Actually, students are usually brilliant, and usually we can get a great PhD. But once you get POSTOP and research assistant, you have to actually bring their salary in as well. So you know they want to stay on in the lab with you, particularly the research assistants who won't be writing their own grants. You have a bit of a obligation to write grants and try and keep them employed with you because they are often funded for two, two or three years on the grant. And then when that grant finishes, if you haven't got another grant coming along to sustain them, then unfortunately, you may lose a research assistant who has been integral and trying to keep your group together. So there is always that kind of challenge to to keep your funding stream going again. PhD students all get examined, so you also have to act as examiners for PhD student of other people that both within the university and elsewhere and again, there's lots of other kind of more managerial things that you have to do. Organized courses, um, interview candidates for different post for the foundation program. Think about research strategy as well, both for your own group but within the wider groups within the university and indeed within the UK and further revealed. So there's lots of different things that research actually entails, and it is challenging to keep them all going um, sometimes you think. And yeah, so that is the one. Nice thing. I think that you can sit and have a coffee with a friend and shoot the breeze and try and think and plan new research ideas Problem. Solve et cetera as well. And you can take your research in a in a number of different directions also as well, once too far. But yeah, the opportunity to make a big, big difference as well, so you can take your research in a number of different directions. And, as I say, that can be exciting. I've done lots of stuff, for instance, and zebra fish, which I never thought I would get into when I first got into clinical academia. So there's lots of different interesting opportunities that come up new techniques, new technologies that you know you should be aware of this year. That will come along next year, and you'll be maybe going on a totally different research to react. So that's really interesting, and again to make a much bigger difference as well. So very also, I'm now looking at immunizations based on measles. Now, clearly it's the Corona virus immunization, but if you look in the late sixties when the measles vaccine was introduced. You nearly half a million Children every year. Getting measles and measles can cause death. And you can see it has been almost eradicated until fairly recently, certainly in in the UK as well. So you can make a much bigger difference than you will ever do as a clinician, as a single doctor. Seeing there's only a limited number of patients you're ever going to be able to see is it has a clinician, and it's really a great opportunity to travel network with people across different countries. You can pick up leadership roles in an organized global organizations as well. So it really is a really fantastic way to see the world meet. Lots of really interesting people also. So I think for a variety for the ability to direct your own time and direct your own travel of research, I think it's a fantastic, um, really rewarding career. Just a couple of things about some of the disadvantages. Um, it is a longer training. You're taking time out to do a PhD, Um, so your peers may well find themselves and consultant posts three or four or five years ahead of you finally getting some degree of job security, Um, and even buy a nice a job insecurity because often you need to get one or two fairly senior fellowship before the university will agree to fund your salary and keep you funded and and also that of others. I mentioned the research technician, for instance, but also trying to find funding for postdocs that that have been working with you for a couple of years. You do feel a definite responsibility to them and getting their salary for them. Having a very varied job plan is really interesting, but sometimes it all gets a bit much and you can be spending several different place at one time. And you know, I've only so much headspace, I have to say to deal with something at one time, so trying to, you know, compartmentalize some of the time and try and sort of make a day to do. I'm going to think about it writing a grant for these three days, I'm going to block that period of time out and try and avoid answering emails. But inevitably, everything then builds up as well, so that can be the challenge both and, you know, keeping on top of everything but also trying to then balance your work with the life, which can be a challenge as well. I mentioned at the very bottom Worst pension as well. You will not believe how good the NHS pensions are. I know there's a lot of grumbling about pensions and taxes and stuff at the minute of the N. H. S. Pension is fantastic, and the universities one is not nearly as good at your stage. I'm sure pensions are the least of the worries at this stage. Okay, I was gonna finish off with that. And again, if anybody has any further questions about what life is like, it's a clinical academic. Good point span points or any further questions about the foundation program and applications till three. Thank you so much, Brian. Um, I think if there are no further questions, I'll just say that we still have our CV clinics open. Um, so some of the current of what academic foundation doctors in Edinburgh have kindly volunteered to look through CVS for people who are planning to apply this year. Um, and they're open until Friday. If you have haven't had a chance to send your CvN. Um, and I see Kevin's put in a feedback form, um, in the chat. So if you guys can give some feedback, you can get a certificate of mental for attending with. Yeah, details for the CB clinic should be on the atrium. Inspire Facebook page. So if you guys have a look, um should be able to find it there. This is only open to current tear sixes and people applying this year just because of the numbers. But if there's nothing else, they can end up there. Thank you. Very. Okay. No problem. Thanks very much everybody for giving up your time to come in here. And hopefully those of you applying the foundation this year will be successful.