Tag: PhD

“I sound like Darth Vader and I cough up fur balls” How people living with Airway Stenosis have informed my research career so far.

In conversation with: Dr Gemma Clunie, Senior Clinical Academic Speech and Language Therapist working within: Sackler MSK Lab, Surgery & Cancer  and PERC Fellow (2024)

What is your research project about and what stage are you at?

Airway stenosis (AS) is a narrowing of the windpipe between throat and lungs. People with AS experience a range of distressing symptoms such as shortness of breath, wheeziness, a hoarse voice and swallowing difficulties. Many patients have complicated surgery to widen their throat and improve their breathing. The picture included below shows one of my PhD research participants immediately after this surgery.

“How patients at different stages of the steroid weaning process helped to shape and design my research”

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In conversation with: Dr Katharine Lazarus, Diabetes and Endocrine Registrar and Clinical Research Fellow, working within the Section of Endocrinology and Investigative Medicine, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Imperial College London

What is your research project about and what stage are you at?

Steroid tablets, such as prednisolone are widely used to treat conditions such as asthma and arthritis. One in six people take steroids at any one time and one in 50 adults (approximately 1 million in the UK) take steroids for a prolonged period. 

Involving women to help shape a project exploring pregnancy care following weight-loss surgery

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In conversation with: Dr Saleem Ansari, Registrar in Metabolic Medicine and Chemical Pathology, working within the Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, imperial College London

What is your research project about and what stage are you at?

My research aims to answer the question ‘What is the preferred weight-loss operation for women with obesity who are of child-bearing age.’

There are two main weight loss-operations, the ‘gastric bypass ‘and sleeve gastrectomy’. The gastric bypass operation is associated with complications during pregnancy such as early delivery and small babies, but whether these complications occur after sleeve gastrectomy is currently unknown.

Why has nobody asked us?! Our journey so far to co-produce research.

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In conversation with Dr Helen Skirrow, National Institute Health Research Clinical Doctoral Research Fellow, Child Health Unit, Department of Primary Care and Public Health, School of Public Health, Imperial College London. and Lena Choudary-Salter, Founder and CEO of The Mosaic Community Trust

What is “Why has nobody asked us?” about?

“Why has nobody asked us?” aims to explore families’ experiences and perspectives of childhood vaccinations and is a co-production research project between Dr Helen Skirrow and The Mosaic Community Trust. In the UK, children living in poorer areas of big cities like London who belong to ethnic minorities or who do not speak English at home are less likely to be vaccinated however in previous research the voices of these families have often been missing.

Involving teenagers in research about the environment and mental health

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In conversation with: Rhiannon Thompson, PhD student working within the Imperial College Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the SCAMP study

What did you do? 

As part of my PhD project, I wanted to find out more about how adolescents are affected by their physical environments (their thoughts and feelings about urban and rural places, buildings and traffic, greenspace, nature, noise, etc). To begin with, I recruited 12 teenagers for a project design workshop where we brainstormed ideas for how this question could be answered.