What is your current job title and current role?
Specialist Teenage & Young Adult Occupational Therapist at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

I am the Band 7 Lead Occupational Therapist (OT) working with teenage and young adults (TYA) who are diagnosed with cancer at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, with approximately 70% of my workload involving direct patient contact. The main focus of my role is supporting TYA patients to cope with both physical and psychological difficulties experienced during a cancer diagnosis. From a psychological perspective this involves providing patient-centred programmes of psychological intervention such as anxiety management, confidence building, mood management and body image support. 
 
 
Why are you interested in research and this ARC pre-doctoral fellowship?
I am passionate about developing body image support for my patients as I see the short-term and long term impact that appearance change has on young people during and following a cancer diagnosis. I recently had the opportunity to complete an NIHR internship focusing on body image research which gave me the opportunity to meet and spend time with the Centre for Appearance Research (CAR), a body image specialist research team based at the University of West England. I had the opportunity to present to them my current research findings and they are extremely passionate about this project and keen to engage in a future collaboration. One of the leading authors in this field who is based at CAR has also offered supervisory support to take this project further to a PhD.

I was thrilled to be accepted on the ARC-GM pre-doctoral fellowship as it will give me the opportunity to complete a robust doctoral application to continue with this research area. I will have the opportunity to gain valuable research experience through the University of Manchester Masters in Clinical (MClin) Research programme, gaining in-depth knowledge and essential skills to critically appraise, apply, design and undertake high quality research. I would like to focus on developing my research skills in order to apply these skills into clinical research and continue with my clinical academic career.   
 
 

How are you currently involved in research in your job role?

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is highly supportive of engaging in research opportunities which has enabled me to lead on several service development projects, including developing TYA body image support interventions, developing bereavement support services and also developing a TYA rehabilitation post-stem cell transplant service. I always ensure that the young people within the TYA service are included in the research that takes place. I am keen to share and disseminate research findings and provide expert advice to other Occupational Therapists nationally and locally.  

I regularly present at conferences both nationally and internationally and support other staff to develop services, including line managing the first OT Proton Beam Therapy role in the country. I am a member of the organisation committee for the National Paediatric and Teenage & Young Adult Oncology training programme which supports allied health professionals (AHPs) nationally to share and develop learning opportunities in the oncology setting. I am passionate about improving services for teenagers and young adults with a cancer diagnosis.