Close
Blog written by Ros Yu, Head of PPI and Research Communications
I look after the active involvement of patients (PPI) in research, helping them to input into the design and delivery of clinical research, and I work to communicate research to the general public, patients and the world at large. I do a whole host of things which makes my job satisfying, from setting up engagement events, to organising training for researchers and overseeing newsletters, websites and social media.
It was a very winding road to working in biomedical research.
There wasn’t much science or medicine in the beginning - I did a doctorate on Victorian literature and went on to become a journalist, starting as a reporter on petrol station forecourts. I got to know all about life’s fundamentals like Point-of-Sale display theories and paper towels vs electric hand driers debates. My first published headline was the amazing: “Huggy bears go savoury”. I met the Milky Bar kid and covered that world shattering event - the relaunch of Fruitella sweets.
I ended up here in R and D really as a result of working in health journalism and health communications. It was while working for a mental health trust in charge of patient information that I realised how passionate I was about empowering ordinary people. By making things clear and understandable it was possible to enable people to take control of their mental health care.
From journalism to health comms, it was always for me about explaining things I didn’t know much about. So, I had to learn and understand things before passing along what I had found out.
Then UCLH advertised a job getting patients involved in research so they had a say about how studies are designed.
I arrived here over 10 years ago and brought with me my journalism and comms expertise. So, my role kind of spread. I found research fascinating and exciting and I wanted to share what I was finding out and getting involved in, I wanted to share with people how enthralling and exciting it is and how important. And I wanted to help people have a say in it.
My job is great because it’s about lending my skills to clinical research. The best thing is making things happen. When we hold engagement events I love to watch from the side and think I played a part in making this happen. And when you see kids getting all excited about science and medicine – well that’s just the best!