Blog posts

Writing your student dissertation: Some tips on how to do it well

It’s the time of year when academics – including myself – are marking MSc and MPH dissertations. Once again, I see many errors in how students write their dissertations. What are these errors and how can students avoid them to make their dissertations more readable?

  1. Most importantly, spend time planning the outline of your dissertation with chapter headings and subsection headings for each chapter. Decide what key tables, figures and graphs you need to include to reinforce what is in the main text of your dissertation.
  2. Many students assume that longer words are “more scientific” and therefore preferable than shorter words. For example, using terms like perspiration rather than sweat or haemorrhage rather than bleed. Imagine if Churchill had written his speeches in this “more scientific” way.
  3. Use shorter sentences when possible. Longer sentences are more difficult to read and can lead to the examiner missing the key points you are trying to make. The same applies to paragraphs – don’t make them too long and look for natural breaks when you can start a new paragraph.
  4. Use active voice rather than passive voice in your text. For example, “I reviewed the literature” rather than the “literature was reviewed by me”. Active voice is easier to read and makes it clear to your examiner that you were the one who carried out all this work.
  5. Remove superfluous words. For example, “based on” is better than “on the basis of” and “even though” is better than “despite the fact that”. Getting rid of superfluous words gives more space get across the work you have done and makes it easier to stay within the allotted word count.
  6. Avoid using cliches and colloquial expressions. These are not often used in scientific writing and may be difficult for some examiners and readers to understand, particularly if they are not native English speakers. They can always be replaced by other terms that are clearer.
  7. Spelling, punctuation and grammar. When you are writing your dissertation is not the time to be learning how to get these correct. If you need help, most universities will offer some tuition. Do these courses early in your course and also get yourself a guide on good grammar.
  8. Spend some time trying to improve your scientific writing. Many journals offer the opportunity to reply online to their articles. You can use this facility to improve your critical thinking and ability to collate your arguments. Working in a writing group can also help.
  9. Read examples of good scientific writing. Seeing how others have achieved this task can help you in your own writing. For example, read “From Creation to Chaos: Classic Writings in Science” by Bernard Dixon for some excellent examples.
  10. Check your spelling, punctuation and grammar before you finally submit your dissertation to your examiners. It’s surprising how many errors remain the text of a dissertation that could have been pick up by running the spell and grammar check options in word processing software.

A digital solution to streamline access to smoking cessation interventions

Traditional face-to-face smoking cessation interventions may result in significant delays between the patient’s decision to quit and access to effective pharmacological support or behavioural therapies. In a study published in the journal Public Health in Practice, we evaluated digital solution to streamline access to smoking cessation interventions

This was the first attempt in the UK where a GP-led online portal with added functionality was used to streamline timely access to pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation using an asynchronous formal request for treatment. We evaluated the findings of a primary care pilot from two general practices in West London where 4337 patients who are registered as smokers were contacted with unique link to access the portal.

Whereas smoking is the major avoidable cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in the UK and internationally, there are surprisingly few examples of a patient-facing primary care led IT system to streamline the delivery of evidence based smoking cessation interventions in the community setting. The use of a primary care-led online portal could enable patients to make an asynchronous request for treatment without the need to visit the general practice.

Update on Polio Vaccination for Health Professionals

One of my educational roles is update staff in my medical practice about topical public health issues in our weekly clinical meeting. In the most recent meeting, I gave an update on polio in London, including some key facts that health professionals need to understand.

1. Understand the difference between the two types of polio vaccines: inactivated and live. The inactivated polio vaccine has been used in the UK since 2004. Once polio has been eradicated from a country, it is safer to use the inactivated vaccine.

2. Check each patient’s polio vaccination status and encourage those patients who are not vaccinated or only partly vaccinated to receive a full course of vaccinations. Ensure that vaccine status is recorded on the patient’s electronic medical record.

3. Support the booster programme for children aged 1-9 years old that is currently being rolled out across London. Address vaccine hesitancy and any concerns about vaccination in parents sympathetically and aim to understand why people may have concerns about polio vaccines.

4. Direct parents to evidence-based resources that provide further information about both polio vaccination and childhood vaccination more generally. There are many excellent online resources published in different languages by the NHS and other government organisations.

My technological journey as a student and academic

I was explaining to a student recently how we did literature searches in the 1980s and 1990s. We had to look up articles in a printed copy of Index Medicus, and then pushed a trolley around the library to collect the journals so we could photocopy the articles. There was an incredulous look in her eyes. We had to pay for the photocopies, which made us very selective about the articles we used in our literature reviews.

And when we got to the photocopier, we had to hope that it had not broken down or that the queue to use it was too long. Arriving well before library closing time was also important. Online articles did not exist then and sometimes we had to wait for weeks for articles to arrive using the Inter-Library Loan Service if they were not in the library’s own collection. Eventually, printed copies of Index Medicus were replaced by a CD-ROM version (which you have to book a slot in advance to use) and then eventually by online bibliographic databases. And now, we have immediate access to online journal articles.

I then went onto explain that the terms ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ in modern computer programs are there because that is once what we had to do. We cut out graphs and diagrams with scissors and then pasted them into documents using glue. More incredulous looks followed. When we presented our work, we used hand written acetates on an overhead projector. Moving to printed acetates was a big step forwards (or so it seemed at the time). Presenting at professional conferences meant using (expensive) slides. Errors that you couldn’t correct were common. Eventually acetates and slides were replaced by PowerPoint projectors.

When I was a student in the 1980s, all our course work was hand-written. Most of us did not have typewriters and very few of us could type. When word processing software became common later in the decade, it meant no more Tippex or retyping whole documents to correct errors.

My first printer was a 9-pin dot matrix. It was noisy, slow and the quality of the print was poor. But it produced much more legible output than hand-written documents. Moving to 24 pin dot matrix printers was a big advance in the quality of printed documents. Eventually, affordable ink jet and laser printers became common.

Moving from cassettes to floppy disks and then hard disks for storage were big advances. My first hard disk was 20MB in capacity. Such was the size of computer programs and their data files in the 1980s, I couldn’t come close to filling it. Now a word document with some embedded images can often be larger than 20MB.

My student clearly thought I had grown up in a technological stone age. In many ways, her reaction was like mine when older people used to tell me what life was like in the 1930s and 1940s during the Great Depression and World War Two. But although the 1980s and early 1990s were a more technologically-backwards era than now, there were benefits in being a student then. We had our course fees paid and received a grant to cover our living costs, so we did not graduate with the vast debts that current students have.

Patient outcomes following emergency admission to hospital for COVID-19 compared with influenza

Our recent study in the journal Thorax examined patient outcomes following emergency admission to hospital for COVID-19 compared with influenza. We used routinely collected primary and secondary care data. Outcomes, measured for 90 days follow-up after discharge were length of stay in hospital, mortality, emergency readmission and primary care activity.

The study included 5132 patients admitted to hospital as an emergency, with COVID-19 and influenza cohorts comprising 3799 and 1333 patients respectively. Patients in the COVID-19 cohort were more likely to stay in hospital longer than 10 days (OR 3.91, 95% CI 3.14 to 4.65); and more likely to die in hospital (OR 11.85, 95% CI 8.58 to 16.86) and within 90 days of discharge (OR 7.92, 95% CI 6.20 to 10.25). For those who survived, rates of emergency readmission within 90 days were comparable between COVID-19 and influenza cohorts (OR 1.07, 95% CI 0.89 to 1.29), while primary care activity was greater among the COVID-19 cohort (incidence rate ratio 1.30, 95% CI 1.23 to 1.37).

We concluded that patients admitted for COVID-19 were more likely to die, more likely to stay in hospital for over 10 days and interact more with primary care after discharge, than patients admitted for influenza. However, readmission rates were similar for both groups. These findings, while situated in the context of the first wave of COVID-19, with the associated pressures on the health system, can inform health service planning for subsequent waves of COVID-19, and show that patients with COVID-19 interact more with healthcare services as well as having poorer outcomes than those with influenza.

The findings relate to 2020, a period before Covid-19 vaccination began and when different variants of SARS-CoV-2 were circulating in the UK. We aim to update the analysis to see how Covid-19 outcomes have changed since that period compared to outcomes from influenza.

Covid-19 rates are increasing again in the UK – What does the public need to know?

Why are so many people coming down with Covid again?

The current wave of Covid-19 infections is being caused by highly infectious subvariants (BA.4 and BA.5) of the Omicron variant that entered the UK in late 2021. These subvariants are more infectious than the previous variants of the coronavirus that the UK has faced. They are also more likely to cause reinfections. Other factors increasing the number of infections include greater mixing of people now that Covid-19 measures in the UK have ended and reduced protection from infection from vaccines because many people are more than six months since their last Covid-19 vaccination.

Are the new variants worse than the other variants?

Although they are more infectious than other variants, the new subvariants of Omicron do not cause more severe disease and on average, they probably cause a milder illness. However, because of the very large number of infections caused by these subvariants, some people will have a serious illness with a risk of being admitted to hospital or dying. The good news though is that vaccines still work very well at reducing the risk of serious illness and death. The number of deaths from Covid-19 in England is very low due to this protection given by vaccines.

How bad could this new wave get?

We will see a further increase in cases and hospitalisations during July. After July, we should see a decline in both cases and hospitalisations as we saw with the previous two Omicron waves in January and April. Although we will see additional pressures on the NHS, the number of deaths will remain much lower than in January 2021 when deaths from Covid-19 in the UK peaked.

Could any restrictions be brought back and if so, what?

It’s very unlikely the government will bring in any new legal restrictions but they may offer public health advice on the use of face masks in indoor settings and the importance of good ventilation in reducing the risk of infection. They will also encourage people to take up the offer of Covid-19 vaccination if they are eligible for a booster or have not yet had a full course of vaccines.

Wasn’t the colder season the worst time for Covid? How come it’s now spreading in the hot weather?

Respiratory infections are usually worse in winter when the weather is colder and people spend more times indoors. With Covid-19, however, we have seen new virus variants emerge that are highly infectious and which can increase the number of infections, including in the summer.

If I’ve already had Covid this year am I just as likely to catch this new variant, or if I do might the symptoms be milder?

People who have already had an infection this year are less likely to get a second infection. If they do get a second infection, it is likely to be milder, particularly if they are fully vaccinated. However, for some people, a second infection can be more severe than their first infection.

How could the new Covid surge affect the summer holidays?

The UK government has no plans to introduce restrictions on travel or requirements for Covid-19 testing like those we saw in previous years. However, if there is a large increase in the number of Covid-19 infections, it is possible some countries may introduce new measures. However, at this point, I would say this is unlikely to happen.

Will they bring back airport testing, and if not how easily could we catch Covid if there are positive people on the flight?

There are no plans to bring back Covid-19 testing before flights. It’s unlikely this will happen in the UK unless the number of serious Covid-19 cases become so high, the NHS is unable to cope. The best way to prevent this from happening is for everyone to be fully vaccinated. The risks of catching Covid-19 are probably higher in crowded airport terminals than on an airplane because of the ventilation and air filtration systems that modern airplanes use. If people are unwell, they should avoid travelling so that they do not infect others.

I’m back to working next to others in a busy office. What precautions should I take?

Try to ensure that the room is well ventilated. Ideally, everyone in the office should be fully vaccinated. You can also wear a face mask (preferably an FFP2 mask that provides better protection). If anyone is unwell with a possible Covid-19 infection, they should stay at home and not come into work. Employers have a duty of care to their staff and should not ask employees to come to work if they are unwell and may pass on a Covid-19 infection to others.

Am I still protected by the vaccine and booster?

If you are fully vaccinated, including with a booster, you are still very well protected against serious illness and death, although you can still be infected. When another booster is offered in the Autumn, you should take up this offer if you are in an eligible group.

When will another booster be available for people under 75 and will it be updated to protect against the new variant?

Another Covid-19 vaccine booster will be available in the Autumn. This will be offered to people living in care home for older adults and their staff. Frontline health and social care workers and people aged 65 years and over will also be eligible for a booster in the Autumn. Some adults aged 16 to 64 years who are in a clinical risk group will also be eligible for a booster but the government has not yet confirmed what medical conditions will make people eligible. There are now updated vaccines being tested that target Omicron. The government has not yet approved these updated vaccines for use in the UK but if the results from clinical studies are good, it’s very likely these vaccines will be offered in place of the original vaccines for the Autumn booster programme.

Why is there talk of an even worst Covid wave in the Autumn? What might happen?

We had a very high number of hospitalisations and deaths from Covid-19 in the winter of 2020-21. In the winter of 2021-22, thanks to vaccines, the number of hospitalisations and deaths was much lower. It’s very likely that the UK will experience another wave of Covid-19 in the Autumn and Winter when the weather is cooler and people spend more time indoors. This increase in Covid-19 cases may occur at the same time as a large flu epidemic. To reduce the impact of flu and Covid-19 on people’s health and the NHS, it’s essential that eligible people take up the offer of a flu vaccine and that as many people as possible are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, including with any boosters that are offered later this year.

A version of this article was first published in the Daily Mirror.

Healthcare workers potentially exposed to HIV: an update

Despite the very low risk of seroconversion, occupational HIV exposure is a very stressful situation. Our new article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine provides guidance on how such exposures should be managed to minimise risks and improve health outcomes for staff exposed to contaminated body fluids.

Careful risk communication can help in addressing anxiety. Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) is seldom indicated for occupational exposures if the index case is of unknown HIV status, as the transmission risk is very low. PEP is indicated to reduce the transmission risk following high-risk incidents – exposures where the index case is known to be HIV-positive with a detectable viral load – and is most effective if started promptly.

Why we need to put an end to the GANFYD culture in the UK

One of the causes of increased workload in general practice are the many requests that doctors get for letters from patients or from external organisations. It’s now so common that doctors have coined a term for it: GANFYD – Get A Note From Your Doctor.

It’s seems that large sections of society can’t function without these “letters from doctors”. Instead of using common sense or employing their own clinical advisers, external organisations make repeated requests to NHS doctors for letters which are not at all needed.

Often the worst offenders come from the public sector – e.g. universities who seem to look upon NHS general practice as a source of free occupational health advice for their students. Universities never – of course – offer to pay for this advice they get from NHS GPs.

Instead, university requests will come with a mealy-mouthed statement that any fee is the responsibility of the student. Like doctors are going to impose heavy fees on impoverished students who already have large debts and are who are often living in poverty.

Local government and schools are other frequent offenders, requesting letters for issues they could easily resolve themselves using some common sense. And perhaps surprisingly, the NHS is also a frequent offender (you would think that NHS Trusts would know better).

What’s the solution? I have concluded that to address the GANFYD problem, we need to remember the adage “money talks while bullshit walks”. But don’t charge patients. Change NHS regulations so the (suitably large fee) is the responsibility of the organisation making the request.

The NHS is under great pressure and we urgently need to do everything we can to reduce unnecessary work in the NHS so that NHS staff can focus on clinical work.

Impact of COVID-19 on primary care contacts with children and young people in England

During the COVID-19 pandemic, health systems globally shifted towards treating COVID-19 infection in adults and minimising use of health services for other patients, including children and young people (CYP), who were less susceptible to severe COVID-19. In March 2020, the NHS recommended remote triaging before any face-to-face contact to reduce infection risk.

The UK Government announced a nationwide lockdown in England from 23 March 2020, and the public was advised to stay at home to limit transmission of COVID-19 and avoid strain on health resources. GPs were asked to prioritise consultations for urgent and serious conditions, and suspend routine appointments for planned or preventive care.

Children’s access to primary care is highly sensitive to health system changes. We examined the impact of COVID-19 on GP contacts with children and young people (CYP) in England. We used a longitudinal trends analysis was undertaken using electronic health records from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) database.

GP contacts fell 41% during the first lockdown compared with previous years. Children aged 1–14 years had greater falls in total contacts (≥50%) compared with infants and those aged 15–24 years. Face-to-face contacts fell by 88%, with the greatest falls occurring among children aged 1–14 years (>90%). Remote contacts more than doubled, increasing most in infants (over 2.5-fold). Total contacts for respiratory illnesses fell by 74% whereas contacts for common non-transmissible conditions shifted largely to remote contacts, mitigating the total fall (31%).

In conclusion, CYP’s contact with GPs fell, particularly for face-to-face assessments. This may be explained by a lower incidence of respiratory illnesses because of fewer social contacts; changing health-seeking behaviour; or a combination of both. The large shift to remote contacts mitigated total falls in contacts for some age groups and for common non-transmissible conditions.

The study can be read in the British Journal of General Practice.

Let patients self-refer to lifestyle management services

Recent draft guidance from NICE gives a much bigger role to exercise and weight loss in people with osteoarthritis, and painkillers such as paracetamol and strong opioids not advised.

I agree that the aims of the new draft NICE guidance on the management of osteoarthritis in primary care are good but the problem will be in providing patients with access to suitable lifestyle and exercise programmes. In many parts of England, these services are either not currently in place or have very limited capacity. As well as putting in place services with sufficient capacity, we also need to ensure there is equitable access to them, based on clinical need. We know from prior experience that it is more affluent and better educated patients who are more likely to take up these kind of lifestyle and exercise interventions.

We also need to simplify clinical pathways and allow patients to refer themselves directly to services without requiring a referral from a GP. This will improve the speed of access to these services for patients and reduce the demands on already over-stretched GP services.

A version of this blog was first published in the British Medical Journal.