S&C Staff Blog

Calibre Programme
The Calibre Programme is running again in 2015! The Calibre Programme is a focussed development programme for disabled staff in Higher Education and beyond, the programme is aimed at individuals who seek to gain a greater understanding of their role in the work place. It is suitable for academics, researchers, technicians, professional and support staff from higher education and beyond.

Declaration of Interest should be made by 12pm on the 5th of January 2015, find out more here.

Disability Awareness Month
There are a series of events for the Disability Awareness Month running in November and December:

• 26th November—Traveling Tenderly – A difficult journey from Tinteskin to Imperial – Register Here (A personal story of struggles and victories with depression addiction and self-harming & living with a visual impairment)
• 1st December—Keynote Lecture—HIV in 2015: On the edge of a revolution—Register Here (World Aids Day Panel Discussion – A talk looking into the current state of the epidemic, prevention and treatment)
• 3rd & 5th December – MHFA Two Day training Course—Register Here (The MHFA standard course teaches techniques to provide help to someone (staff or students) experiencing a mental health problem before professional help is obtained.)

To get involved and for more information follow the link

Read Equality, Diversity and Disability Information in full

The Human Anatomy Unit has recently been the grateful recipient of an Anatomage Virtual Dissection Table, kindly donated by Prof Ara Darzi.

The table offers both gross full body, male and female anatomy as well as numerous pathological examples derived from real patient data. The table offers a new and exciting learning resource within the unit and is available to both staff and students.

The Anatomage Table is location in the Pathology Museum 11^th floor Charing Cross Hospital Campus.

Read Virtual Dissection Table Donated to the Human Anatomy Unit in full

Imperial College will be part of the new national research centre Arthritis Research UK/MRC Centre for Musculoskeletal  Health and Work, which aims to tackle musculoskeletal disorders in the workplace.

Researchers at the £1.4m Arthritis Research UK/MRC Centre for Musculoskeletal  Health and Work,  led by the University of Southampton, aim to find cost-effective ways of reducing the impact of conditions that affect the muscles, joints and bones on people’s employment and productivity, with benefits for patients, employers and society as a whole.

Prof Alison McGregor from the MSk Lab in Surgery, will be working in collaboration with Prof Anthony Bull from the Department of Engineering. Prof McGregor made the following comment about the work they will be involved in:

The project will be collaborating with Occupational Health at Guys and St Thomas’ and is looking at psychological and mechanical risk factors for low back pain. We are going to recruit and follow a cohort of 200 nurses looking at their spinal function and psychological profiles on recruitment and will then repeat the measure if they report low back pain. The focus is looking at injury mechanisms with a view to developing preventative strategies or screening tools.

Director of the new centre, Professor David Coggon, said: “Musculoskeletal conditions are a major cause of sickness absence and job loss.  We’re enormously excited about our new centre which we hope will lead to new ways of preventing their occurrence, and helping employees who are affected to stay in productive work.”

The centre will focus its research on the three main musculoskeletal causes of work disability – back, neck and arm pain, osteoarthritis and inflammatory arthritis. A special theme will be the impact of these conditions on older people who are approaching normal retirement age.

Find out more from the MRC news page.

Read Imperial to be part of new UK research centre to tackle musculoskeletal disorders in the workplace in full

Congratulations to Dr Helen Laycock (Clinical Fellow/Anaesthetic Registrar doing a PhD in APMIC), who was awarded the 2014 Trainee Publication Prize by the Faculty of Pain Medicine (Royal College of Anaesthetists) for a paper published with Dr Istvan Nagy and Dr Carsten Bantel from APMIC.

The paper was titled “Peripheral mechanisms of burn injury-associated pain” and was published in the European Journal of Pharmacology in 2013. Dr Laycock presented a short summary of the paper at the Faculty of Pain Medicines Annual Meeting on the 14th November.

Read Trainee Publication Prize in full

Professor Andrew Rice from the section of Anaesthetics, Pain Medicine and Intensive Care has collaborated with historian Dr Emily Mayhew and army surgeon Major Dafydd Edwards in a paper published in The Lancet on Friday, looking at how WW1 surgeons could do little for amputees’ pain and how treatment still remains a challenge.

Army doctors in the First World War were helpless to stop soldiers who lost limbs from suffering in pain, according to researchers. A century on, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have made the loss of limbs common among military casualties once again, but while prosthetic technology has improved dramatically, there is still a shortage of effective treatments for pain caused by damaged nerves.

Read more on this in the College article.

Read WW1 surgeons could do little for amputees’ pain – and treatment remains a challenge in full

Two students currently working with Prof Andrea Frilling in the Division of Surgery have each been awarded with the 2014 Poster Awards of the UK and Ireland Neuroendocrine Tumour Society (UKI NETS), which aims to promote research, education, training and best clinical practice across a multidisciplinary area in the field of endocrine tumours.

One prize went to Helen Miller, a PhD student working under Prof Friling and the other went to Ashley K. Clift, an UG student who began working with Prof Frilling following an initiative of the AcaMedics programme at Imperial. This programme focuses on opportunities for medical students to participate in research projects and so far Ashley has already contributed to two major papers.

The winning posters will be presented at the UKI NETS annual conference on 01 December 2014.

Read Students win prizes in full

The Cancer Research UK Imperial Centre is delighted to celebrate the exhibition by Rina Dave ‘The People Who Are Keeping Me Alive’ which will be on display in the College’s Main Entrance from Exhibition Road at South Kensington from 17^th – 30^th of November.

The exhibition has focused on 20-25 individuals who are responsible for the care of one cancer patient, Rina Dave. It portrays the people behind the profession from three different hospitals: Charing Cross, Hammersmith, and Stanmore, but also her GP and her Chinese herbalist. Rina Dave has stage four cancer, and during her many treatments she has met different teams of professionals from technicians to surgeons who are involved working across disciplines in some way or the other in the care and wellbeing of the patient.

In every person she has come into contact with Rina has been impressed with the care and compassion she has received and the many different specialities which have enabled her to get the treatment that she needs. Through her exhibition Rina depicts how important they were in her treatment in giving her the strength and energy to survive and stay strong. It is important to Rina that each portrait gives the audience an insight into what it is about these people that give them the strength and inspiration to carry on working in such an environment. The exhibition itself will be colourful, full of life and with a sense of humour.

For more information on the exhibition take a look at the Facebook page and keep up to date with what’s happening at the CRUK Imperial Centre Facebook page.

Read CRUK Imperial Centre new Art Exhibition in full

Congratulations to two of the Clinical Research Fellows working in Vascular Surgery, who have recently been awarded the below prizes:

• Mr Roshan Bootun was awarded the Norman Tanner medal by the Royal Society of Medicine for his paper on A randomised controlled trial of two different methods of endovenous ablation in the management of superficial venous insufficiency. 
• Miss Kate Williams was awarded the Surgery MIA prize for her presentation about Neuromuscular electrical stimulation in the management of chronic venous disease. 

Read Prizes won by Vascular Clinical Research Fellows in full

Professor Alun Davies was inaugurated as President of the Surgical Section, Royal Society of Medicine on 15 October 2014 in recognition of his outstanding commitment and contribution to both the Royal Society of Medicine and academic vascular surgery.

Professor Davies is based at Charing Cross and St Mary’s Hospitals.  His research interests include the aetiology and management of venous and arterial disease, metabolic profiling, and health-related quality of life assessment.

The Surgical Section of the RSM is hosting a range of meetings next year – please see their website for details (https://www.rsm.ac.uk/events.aspx).

Read Prof Davies becomes a Royal Society of Medicine President of the Surgical Section in full

• The videos from the 2^nd Annual Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality (CPSSQ) Symposium are now available to view on their YouTube channel.

• The Centre is holding a seminar with Paul Levy entitled:

Being willing to see things clearly: The essential role of transparency in clinical process improvement.

Date: Tuesday 6th January 2015 at 5.00pm

Venue: Roger Bannister Lecture Theatre, 1st Floor, Medical School Building, St Mary’s Campus, Paddington

Free to attend/ no registration required.

More details here

Read NIHR Imperial Patient Safety Translational Research Centre News in full

On Thursday 23^rd October, the ICSM Surgical Society held its annual Inaugural Lecture. This year they were honoured to host Miss Clare Marx, the newly-elected President of the Royal College of Surgeons, as the guest speaker.

The ICSM Surgical Society is a student-led society that aims to increase surgical exposure and education for undergraduates. With a membership of over 300 students, it is one of the largest societies at Imperial College School of Medicine. The society delivers many conferences and educational events, most notably their flagship International Trauma Conference.

Miss Clare Marx is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon and the first female President to be elected to the Royal College of Surgeons in its 214-year history. High on her agenda are workforce issues, particularly the low percentage of women entering surgery, the challenges of delivering quality training in reduced working hours, and the need for professionals to continuously strive for improvements in quality and care of their patients.

Her insightful lecture, entitled “It may not be 9-5 but it’s still the best job in the world”, was well-attended by students from all years of the medical school, as well as several members of the Faculty.

Notably, the Surgical Society also conferred an Honorary Presidency upon Mr Joseph Shalhoub, Honorary Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College London, for his outstanding services to the society.

Read Surgical Society Inaugural Lecture in full