How did I get here?

I have always been interested in health and general well being, and from an early age have experienced life in the hospital environment – my mother was a radiographer, and my father has Ankylosing Spondylitis, a form of inflammatory arthritis, which meant having the fluid build up on his joints drained weekly. One of my earliest memories is sitting next to his bed in the local community hospital (run by the nuns) having the fluid drained from his leg. As a result – I grew up feeling comfortable in the hospital environment, and working in the health domain was something I knew I wanted to pursue.

I completed my undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Derby in 2008 and went on to study the MSc in Health Psychologyat the university between 2008 and 2010. Whilst completing my MSc I started my PhD studentship which I had successfully won in the biology department at the University of Derby. Three years later, in 2013 I submitted my PhD titled 'Treatment beyond treatment: Exploring the effects of two complementary interventions on patient reported outcomes of gynaecological cancer'. 

After the completion of my PhD I moved to a Research Fellow post in the gynaecology/oncology department at the Royal Derby Hospital, and became a part time lecturer in Health Psychology at the University of Derby. In May 2014 I moved to Imperial College London to take up a research associate role in the Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality. 

What I'm doing now

I am currently working at Imperial College London as a Research Fellow in the NIHR Imperial Patient Safety Translational Research Centre. My research at Imperial focuses on the barriers and facilitators to incident reporting and the psycho-social impact of surgical complications - you can find out more about my work, and the centre here. I continue to work closely with colleague as the Royal Derby Hospital and the University of Derby on health psychology related projects which can be seen here.