Research Fellow

A full-time (100%) Research Fellow is required to conduct qualitative research as part of a wider study, “Enhancing recruitment and retention of rural doctors in Scotland: a mixed-methods study”, led by Prof Louise Locock and Prof Jen Cleland, and funded by the Scottish Chief Scientist Office. Recruiting and retaining doctors to work in rural and remote areas is a key concern for the Scottish government, and affects the sustainability of remote and rural communities. This aims to understand the experiences, motivations and job preferences of generalist doctors in Scotland, particularly regard to working in rural and remote areas. 

For more information click here.

University of Aberdeen job opportunities can be viewed here.

Experts from our Clinical Trials Unit (CHaRT) and HSRU deliver a 12 week short course on Designing Real World Trials. 

This course takes you through the process of designing a randomised controlled trial (RCT). The course will focus on trials in the evaluation of real-world healthcare and public health settings.  The course aims to develop your knowledge and awareness of how to design a fair test, the appropriate use of trials and alternative trial designs, involving patients and the public, the logistics and practicalities of designing real-world trials and the role of clinical trials units.

To find out more visit the course page or contact Dr Kirsty McCormack

HSRU contributes teaching to the:

• Master of Public Health (MPH) 
• MSc in Global Health and Management 
• Research Methods for Health (PgCert). 

We offer a number of student projects each year to students on the MSc and Intercalated BMEdSci courses.

Our Designing Real-World Trials short course will earn you 15 credits at Masters level (SCQF Level 11).

Staff in HSRU are fully supported in undertaking a PhD.  They are also encouraged to provide supervisory support for full or part-time PhD students. 

We have a PhD opportunity at the moment:

The impact of global pandemics on patients’ decisions to participate in clinical trials (Distance Learning Project - Unfunded) Supervisors will be Professor Louise Locock, Dr Katie Gillies and Dr Zoe Skea.  Applications accepted all year round.

Please click here to view all current University of Aberdeen opportunities.  You will find more details of our opportunity here too.

Below are our current HSRU ongoing PhD projects.

Ongoing projects

• Behavioural interventions to improve clinical trial recruitment and retention - Taylor Coffey
• Complex designs in randomised clinical trials – a case study in dentistry - Beatriz Goulao
• IDENTIFY - The Investigation and Detection of Urological Neoplasia in Patients Referred with suspected urinary tract cancer: A Multicentre cohort study - Sinan Khadhouri
• Interrupted times series (ITS) evaluation - Jemma Hudson
• Optimising the responsible use of antibiotics - Shazia Yousuf
• ‘Soft’ Intelligence and Online Patient Feedback: Using Care Opinion for NHS Quality Improvement in Scotland - Emma Berry
• Towards improvement in care delivery in Huntington's disease (HD) - Daniela Rae
• Understanding family experiences of inherited motor neurone disease (MND) - a qualitative study - Jade Howard

Examples of recently completed projects

• What is the best way to avoid recruitment and retention problems in trials? - Adel El Feky
• Making clinical trials more efficient: consolidating, communicating and improving knowledge of patient recruitment interventions - Heidi Gardner
• Development of core clinical outcome measures for glaucoma interventions - Rehab Ismail
• Mobile Bone Density Scanning Services in the UK: an implementation and outcome evaluation - Rosemary Hollick
• The relationship between perceived decision difficulty, decision time and decision quality in General Practitioners’ decision-making - Nicola McCleary

Clinical

HSRU actively mentors NHS Research Scotland (NRS) fellowships.  Recent NRS Clinical Fellows were:

Current

• Dr Callum Kaye, Consultant in Anaesthesia & Critical Care, NHS Grampian - BIS-TBI

Completed

• Mr Jan Jansen, Consultant Surgeon, NHS Grampian - Geospatial Evaluation of Systems of Trauma Care for Scotland.
   
• Dr Andy Keen, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, NHS Grampian - The application of psychological interventions (including mindfulness based approaches) to health and illness.

Non-clinical

HSRU actively encourages the development of staff through seeking prestigious research fellowships. Several funded research fellowships are supported including for example topics on the surgical trial methodology and methodological investigation of decision support for trial participation

We usually offer summer student work placements to current University of Aberdeen students wishing to improve their knowledge and experience in a research-focused environment.

In 2019 we welcomed 6 student interns; 2 working on projects with the CHaRT programming team and 4 working on Health Services Research projects.

Unfortunately we are unable to offer work placements this summer due to the current situation relating to COVID-19. 

We do hope to recommence the placements in 2021.

There are lots of opportunities for patients and the public to be involved with our research.

You can find out more here

You can also contact our Patient and Public Involvement Co-ordinator Katie Banister