Clinical Academic Careers

There are several formal structured pathways that can lead you to a clinical academic career. In England, for example, there is the HEE/NIHR Integrated Academic Training (IAT) programme for dentists and medics,. You may also opt to follow a more ad hoc, informal route into clinical academia instead.

The interactive link (CATCH) gives you detailed information on what is involved in a clinical academic role at each stage of your academic medical training and beyond

https://www.catch.ac.uk/example-medical-clinical-academic-training-pathway

Funding sources depend on the level of research and the content of the study. Therefore, different funding streams are appropriate for different types of research.

Main sources of funding are the following:

Wellcome:: https://wellcome.org/what-we-do/our-work/research-culture

Charities e.g. Cancer Research: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/funding-for- Grant schemes: researchershttps://acmedsci.ac.uk/grants-and-schemes/grant-schemes

National Institute of Health Research (NIHR): https://www.nihr.ac.uk/researchers/apply-for-funding/how-to-apply-for-project-funding/our-funding-programmes.htm

Medical Research Council (MRC): https://www.ukri.org/councils/mrc/

Changes to PhD funding: https://www.ukri.org/what-we-offer/developing-people-and-skills/find-studentships-and-doctoral-training/changes-to-the-minimum-stipend-from-1-october-2022/

 See Funding document in the downloads section below for additional sources of academic funding.

The following case studies and links give an insight into personal experiences of clinical researchers.

Here you will find case studies of doctors’ experiences at different stages of their career:

Clinical Academic – ST4 O&G

Jane is highly academic and ambitious in her career as an Obs and Gynae ST4. She is determined to not let family hold her back!

She has a PHD on big data which she completed  2 years ago during early specialty training when she went LTFT. Previously she did an ACF and Masters in Medical Stats.

She has just returned from maternity leave with her second child and is in the process of her first child being diagnosed as autistic.

She has three options:

• to come back to working at her local hospital and allied university. She doesn’t rate the academic department particularly highly but she knows the lecturers and a new senior lecturer has been appointed. A plus point is that the commute is less than 20 minute
• To wait for an academic lectureship at a prestigious university but there is no guarantee of her getting this and she might lose the current opportunity
• To move towns to a new but prestigious university far away where she would only need to attend one day a week to start with.

 Through career coaching she managed to resolve the conflict between values of achievement and family by accepting the convenient first option, knowing she could always apply for a role at the  prestigious university in the future. Her initial regret became acceptance and hopefulness for the future.

 

Clinical Academic – ST6 Urology

1. What made you choose an academic career to start with?

       I like science, coming up with new scientific ideas and contributing to knowledge

2. What are the requirements for doing academic research?

       Patience, perseverance, intellectual curiosity, drive to find out and discover

3. What are the advantages/disadvantages of being a clinical researcher?  

       Disadvantages:

• There is very little external motivation, you have to be self-motivated.
• You won’t get a bonus for doing well and you will have to wait a long time for results.
• Finding funding is not easy and competitive
• your lifetime earnings decrease as your pension starts later
• It’s slow paced and doesn’t suit faster paced people
• It can be hard to drop out once you’ve embarked on a research career.

       Advantages:

• A way of refreshing yourself and removing yourself from the wards for a while;
• Intellectually stimulating;
• opportunity to see the bigger picture;
• If you are successful you can have a major impact;
• it can help you get a consultant position.
• (PHD goes in waves: sometimes it is necessary for doing higher level research but currently it is not. You just need GMC registration
• It can allow you to get sub-specialty training which is hard to get normally.
• If you do a PHD you can keep your hand in by doing clinics once a week.
• It can allow you more time before you have to decide on being a consultant

It can open new career paths through contacts – you could develop a portfolio career working for the NHS and doing research in pharma or tech companies.

You can pick up new skills: eg IT, research skills

 

Clinical Academic - Consultant

1.Who is your employer?

My main employer is the university and the salary is paid by them

My clinical work for the NHS is  paid for by the NHS

 

2. What are the alternative ways of doing research

You can take time out from training to do a higher degree ie an OOPR

He did an MD and this is equivalent to a PHD

MD is  only open to clinically qualified doctors

You can do research at any stage of training:

 

3. Funding

NIHR is  the most common funding source: They pay your salary

Welcome trust

MRC/UKRI

There are different small amounts of funding available depending on the specialty

Some UK universities offer a programme for medical trainees

Individual deaneries have academic training opportunities

 

4. Why do clinical research?

I had an interest in an area

It can Put you ahead of the game when applying for consultant positions, sometimes.

Variety

Visibility

 

5. Can you choose your own research project?

To choose your own research you need a track record and publications.

If you already have funding, you could approach a university to do your own research on the basis of interest

Do you need to teach as well as doing research?

Generally yes.

 

Podcast by Marc Reid (non medical) on Imposter experience, as he likes to call it:

PODCAST

https://thestrugglingscientists.com/podcast_episode/ep39-imposter-syndrome/

Examples, profiles of academic scientists:

https://nshcs.hee.nhs.uk/healthcare-science/careers-in-healthcare-science/academic-profiles/

https://www.catch.ac.uk/inspiring-clinical-academics