Professor Marion Campbell

Biography

Professor Marion Campbell is Professor of Health Services Research at the University of Aberdeen. She is also Director of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCSEngland) Aberdeen Surgical Trials Centre. Marion is a medical statistician by training, a clinical trialist and methodologist. Her main research interests are in the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials of complex interventions and of surgical, device and critical care trials. She has published widely on clinical trials methodology including on cluster randomised trials, design of trials of surgical interventions, pragmatic trials and trials reporting. She has served on many national and international funding agencies and committees and is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Faculty of Public Health, and the International Society for Clinical Trials .

Previously Marion served as Vice-Principal (Research) for the University of Aberdeen. In this role, she had primary responsibility for promoting the University's research ambitions, ensuring effective delivery of the University's strategic objectives for research. and for enabling a research context for academic colleagues to deliver world-leading, impactful research.  She also led on the establishment of interdisciplinary research across the institution.  Prior to this, Marion was Dean of Research for Life Sciences and Medicine following ten years as Director of the Scottish Government core-funded Health Services Research Unit.

Marion graduated with an honours degree in Statistics from the University of Aberdeen and subsequently gained an MSc in Statistics and PhD in Public Health.  Following early career appointments within the National Health Service in the fields of Operational Research and Statistics of Medical Audit, she joined the University of Aberdeen in 1993.  

External Memberships

Chair. NIHR/MRC Better Methods Better Research Panel

Member, MRC Training and Careers Strategy Board

Member of REF2021 UoA2 sub-panel

Research Overview

Marion’s main research interests are in the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials especially complex trial design and the design and conduct of surgical and device trials.  She has also published widely on clinical trials methodology including on cluster randomised trials, design of trials of non-pharmacological interventions, pragmatic trials and trials reporting. 

Some examples of current and recent research include:

REINFORCE: The NIHR-funded REINFORCE study aims to evaluation the introduction and scale up of robot-assisted surgery across the NHS.  Further information is available at: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/ace/what-we-do/research/projects-a-z/reinforce-291

AI-TRiPS: This study aims to evaluate the use of AI-powered decision-support tools in trauma care. It will evaluate the effectiveness of the AI-TRiPS system in supporting doctors assess the risks of life-threatening complications. Further information is available at: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/ace/what-we-do/research/projects-a-z/aitrips-368

SuDDICU: This international trial explored the effectiveness of selective decontamination of the digestive tract on mortality and antimicrobial resistance in critical care. It involved 20,000 patients from 26 ICUs from across Canada and Australia (9289 patients in the randomised trial and 10,711 in the associated ecological study). The trial found that while SDD did not reduce hospital mortality, their use was associated with a clinically and statistically significant reduction in the development of new blood stream infections (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2506398)

UK-REBOA: The NIHR-funded UK-REBOA trial aims to establish the clinical and cost-effectiveness of Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta (REBOA), in addition to standard major trauma centre treatment, for the treatment of patients with life-threatening torso haemorrhage.  The trial results have been published in JAMA  (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2810757) and found that REBOA did not reduce and may increase mortality.  

TOPKAT: The NIHR-funded TOPKAT trial is investigating the clinical and cost effectiveness of partial (PKR) vs total (THR) knee replacements.  The trial recruited 528 patients from across the UK.  Five year results have been published in the Lancet (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)31281-4/fulltext) and showed that PKR has similar, if not a slightly better clinical outcome than TKR. More importantly, the economic benefit of using PKR is substantial.  At 10 years clinical outcomes were similar between TKR and PKR but cost-effectiveness was in favour of PKR (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanrhe/article/PIIS2665-9913(25)00250-4/fulltext)