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Blog written by Robert Shortman, Research Manager Nuclear Medicine UCLH
I qualified as a nurse in 1997. In my first role, I worked in the dedicated bone marrow transplant unit at what was the Bristol Royal Hospital for Sick Children. At that time, it was the largest Bone Marrow Transplant unit in Europe, with the highest success rate from matched unrelated donor transplants. During that time, I became more interested in the psychological impact of severe illness on the child and adult patients in the unit, as well as their families. So, I changed direction and started studying Psychology around the corner at the University of Bristol.
Following my undergraduate degree, I worked as an assistant psychologist as part of a study to investigate the effect of brain tumours in children on the child and family. My role was to organize the study visits, administer the cognitive assessments to the children enrolled in the study, analyse the data, and present the results. I gained a lot of experience in that role, gave presentations at a few international neurology conferences (Australia and Monte Carlo). I also used the data for an MPhil qualification, which was based on the effect of tumour location and treatment on attentional abilities. I also conducted a qualitative study on the experience of mothers caring for a child with a brain tumour, which was published.
After a year working in Health Psychology research, back at the Department of Experimental Psychology, I wanted to find a role that would match all of my skills and interests. The Institute of Nuclear Medicine at UCLH was offering a role that would involve recruiting participants for a range of studies investigating the role of PET/CT for various conditions. My aim in applying for the role was to be in a position where I could collect neuroimaging data and develop my own research ideas related to the effects of illness on the brain and cognitive outcomes.
Throughout my time at UCLH, I've worked on many commercial and non-commercial research projects in a diverse range of conditions, including oncology, respiratory medicine, cardiology, and neurology. I've opened my own projects, assessing the impact of scanning procedures on patients and developing informational videos for patients about to undergo PET/CT or PET/MRI scans. I'm now the Nuclear Medicine research team lead and manage the provision of Nuclear Medicine procedures for research studies/trials across the trust. I've developed my own ideas related to epilepsy imaging and am close to completing a PhD program at University College London.
I've always tried to keep in mind the impact of research work on patients when contributing to research protocols, taking calls from clinical patients who want to rearrange their scans by accident, or sending invoices for trial scans. It helps me prioritize my work and takes the sting out of some of the less rewarding administrative tasks we all have to do.