Podcast – Clinical Academics in Clinical Practice

Voice Over:

Brought to you by dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk in association with Alzheimer’s Research UK, Alzheimer’s Society, Race Against Dementia, and The Alzheimer’s Association, bringing you research, news, career tips, and support.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

This is the Dementia Researcher Podcast. Hello, I’m Dr. Anna Volkmer and I am delighted to be back in the hot seat to host this week’s show. Today, we are going to be discussing clinical academic careers and how leaving clinical work to do a PhD can help your clinical career. In fact, doing a PhD doesn’t mean you have to become an academic at all. I worked clinically as a speech and language therapist for 13 years before I gave up clinical life, just for a couple, to complete my PhD.

I’ve since gone back to clinical work and now have what you might call a clinical academic portfolio career, in that I do a bit of both. So, I do a bit of clinical work and a bit of research and a bit of lecturing. And for me, that’s the best of both worlds. So today, I am delighted to be joined by two other healthcare professionals who also undertook a PhD and then have gone back to clinical life. We have Dr. Emily Oliver, a nurse by background, and occupational therapist, Dr. Naomi Gallant. Hi, both.

Dr Emily Jones:

Hi.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Hi.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Now, we’ve all taken a slightly different path, so I thought perhaps we could introduce ourselves and describe each of our pathways in this process. Emily, do you want to go first?

Dr Emily Jones:

Yeah, absolutely. So, as Anna said, my name’s Emily. I’m a mental health nurse by background. I went straight into my PhD actually, from my undergraduate study. So, following my completion of my mental health training, I went straight into the clinical academic doctorate. Following the completion of that, so that was a four-year program, I went on to join a charity actually, so Dementia UK as one of their dementia lead nurses.

And then I stayed in that role for a couple of years and then I moved into the Acute Trust to be the dementia lead at Portsmouth Hospital University. Undertook that role for a year. And then since then, I’m the senior matron in the Medicine Care Group, so I’ve been in that role a year now, which is crazy. It’s gone so quickly. So yeah, quite a different career path, but that’s me.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

How did you get funding to go straight into a PhD from your undergraduate study?

Dr Emily Jones:

It’s quite a blur actually, but the university, I remember them putting out to say that these fellowships were available, so clinical academic, doctorate. So, you were paired up with a local higher education institute and then an organization, a healthcare organization.

So, I was able to actually work at Portsmouth Hospital, which is where I am now. So, I’ve sort of gone 360. So, I did two days clinical there, and then I did three days at the university undertaking the PhD. So, there was a theme of what we should research, and then obviously that evolved as we started on that PhD journey.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Okay. So, the university actually held the funding?

Dr Emily Jones:

So, it’s actually funded by the NIHR, National Institute of Health Research.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. Sorry, Naomi, let’s come to you. Tell us a bit about yourself and your path.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yep. So, I’m Naomi and I’m an occupational therapist. I met Emily on our doctoral fellowship, so I did the same PhD pathway as her, but I actually worked as an occupational therapist for about four years before taking that on. So, I did that. I did a few junior rotation posts and got a little bit of experience. Then went into the clinical academic pathway through the doctoral fellowship that we both did. So, I, like Emily, I was working clinically two days a week and the rest of the time was studying for the PhD.

So, I was with the NHS Trust and then the university. And then I went from that back into full-time clinical work as an occupational therapist. And actually, I’ve been in that same role for four years now, although the last year I’ve been on maternity leave, so not quite, but scarily I’ve realized that adds up to 12 years since I graduated as an occupational therapist. But yeah, so I’ve been in a role as a team lead occupational therapist since then. Obviously, I’ve done various different bits and pieces within that, but I’m sure they’ll come up throughout the podcast. But yeah, so slightly different again, but also similar.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Well, just to reassure you, I worked out the other day that it’s 25 years since I started my therapy training, it’s like a quarter of a century, which makes me ancient. Yeah. But it’s really interesting, so was yours, Naomi, similar to Emily’s in that you saw an advertised opportunity and there were themes, and that it was structured that way?

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yeah. I knew somebody else on my occupational therapy undergrad degree who, like Emily, had gone straight into the PhD from undergrad. So, I knew of the program that was being run, but I just thought it was this really clever thing that she was doing. And then, I came across one of the lecturers at university at a study day that the uni was doing, a dementia study day, that my job had let me go to for the day. And she was like, “Oh, you should do the PhD.” And I was like, “Okay.”

Dr Anna Volkmer:

“Why not?”

Dr Naomi Gallant:

“Why not?” Yeah. No, there’s more reasons for it than that.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. Yeah. [inaudible 00:06:26].

Dr Naomi Gallant:

But that’s how I came across it and how I really was pushed into it. Yeah.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. Okay. That leads really nicely onto my next question, which was about why you decided to do a PhD in the first place and what clinical skills you think transferred to your PhD? I have to say, I guess I had a similar experience to you, Naomi, in that, I did my undergraduate and went away. I genuinely didn’t think I was clever enough. It was like, “I’m not academic.” Finished my undergrad, I thought, “I just need to get out and earn money. I haven’t got the skills to do any further study. Writing isn’t easy, stats are hard, so hard, and I’m not academic material.”

But then I realized that I started specializing in dementia when I was in Australia, actually, and realized that there just wasn’t enough research evidence in this field for speech and language therapists, which is my clinical background. And then, I started exploring opportunities and realized that maybe if I did a PhD, I could not only help the patients by creating more research, but also help my profession by creating evidence that would mean more speech therapy would be commissioned. And so, I had this idea, this like, “Oh, I could contribute to make my clinical area better.” But I was still petrified of actually trying for it. But as I’ve done more academic work, I’ve realized, you don’t have to be that clever, you just have to be really interested.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Is that fair?

Dr Emily Jones:

Yeah, I completely agree.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yeah.

Dr Emily Jones:

Absolutely. I think as long as you’ve got … Oh, sorry, Naomi. You’ve got some drive and like you said, the reason I went into it is because I undertook my dissertation and you had to propose an audit.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Oh, yeah.

Dr Emily Jones:

And I was like, “Oh wow, you can really influence practice through a quality improvement project on a longer-term scale than you can being reactive day to day.” And I think that’s what did it for me, that I just thought, “Oh, I’d love to be able to influence practice at a bit of a higher level than I could if I was solely undertaking clinical work.”

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yeah. I was the same, that influencing practice. And also, I think like you were saying, intelligence isn’t really something that comes into it. And I remember throughout the PhD and when you say you’ve got a PhD, people are like, “Oh, you must be so clever.” And I’m like, “No, you’re just really passionate about something very small and specific.”

But also, like Emily says, you have that drive and that resilience to actually persevere, there’s a lot of skills that come into doing it, but it’s not about being clever at all. But like Emily was saying about influencing practice, my experience when I was in the hospital setting was just how dire some of the understanding and care for people with dementia specifically was, not because of the staff, but because of the system and how people with dementia just didn’t really fit into our system that we have.

And it’s just not the right place for them at all. And I just thought, “Something’s got to be done about this.” And I think that’s what drove me to go into the PhD, because I thought I could at least perhaps use it as a career step to get somewhere more influential than just following that traditional, going through the agenda for change pay scale, banding, and getting to being about 40 and probably a bit disillusioned by that point. That’s a very negative view of … That’s not what everyone does, obviously, but it’s a risk in the NHS, for sure.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I agree. And I think what you’re flagging is that idea that when you see a client and you understand and you meet people with dementia, you become really passionate about what they need and that’s what carries you through. That, and knowing that you can speak to any GP receptionist, any ward clerk, if you’ve got that skill, I think you can negotiate all of academia in terms of [inaudible 00:11:20].

Dr Emily Jones:

Yeah. So, it’s a bit of a myth around the intelligence piece because the PhD is a training program in itself. So, I, for one, cannot stand statistics.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Emily Jones:

I hate math. I’m not good at it. And as part of my PhD, I was able to go to the Royal College of Statistics and do statistics for dummies for two days. And I didn’t have that skill before I took on the PhD. And I think there’s a misperception that the PhD is not a training program. Actually, it trains you to be a researcher and academic, doesn’t it?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Exactly.

Dr Emily Jones:

So, you don’t have to have those skills before you start.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

That’s exactly how I see it actually, it’s a really nice way of putting it. I think only going onto the PhD did I realize that in the academic world, the PhD is almost the bottom rung of the ladder. It’s your step into being a researcher. So, I almost see it as I’ve got a degree in occupational therapy to be an occupational therapist, and I now have a degree in research to be a researcher. I’ve added it to my toolkit as it were. I can’t think of the word I’m trying to say, but to actually use and pull on to build my career.

And actually, I can never not be an occupational therapist because that’s what I’ve been trained to do. And now I can never not be a researcher because that’s what I’ve been trained to do. But the beautiful thing about doing both together is that that’s what we’ve done from the start, I think. I don’t know if Emily would agree, but I’ve never been a researcher without being a clinician, so I couldn’t say what being a researcher on its own is like, but I think that’s a really nice thing to have.

Dr Emily Jones:

Yeah. And the two are so cohesive, aren’t they?

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yeah.

Dr Emily Jones:

So, all of healthcare questions is based on evidence-based practice. So actually, we are doing research or learning from research all the time. It’s always there now, isn’t it?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

It is. Your comment about audit, I think a lot of clinicians don’t realize that audit and quality improvement practices are a type of research, and that idea also of being curious about our clients and working out what’s going to meet their needs, which journey you go on is almost a small … It’s a piece of detective work you’re doing with a person. That’s kind of a bit of research.

But I would say the most common questions that I get from clinicians actually aren’t about those components of, “What is a PhD?” They’re often much more about the practical stuff like, “How did you get the funding?” Which was why I was saying, “Where did you get your funding from?” Earlier on. Or, people say, “How did you find the time to fit in with your life?” Do you have any tips on that front, the two of you?

Dr Naomi Gallant:

I think that’s really difficult because, for me, I do feel like those kinds of things were handed to me quite nicely in doing the clinic … So actually, I would probably promote finding a fellowship of some description, which is a clinical doctoral fellowship because that was the way that we could continue to combine the two.

My experience since finishing the PhD and wanting to continue those research skills within my practice has highlighted to me the challenge that perhaps people find when they’re trying to do both together, without it being handed you in a package, because it has been really difficult. Not through any one reason particularly. I mean, since we finished the PhD, obviously we’ve had a global pandemic and I’ve had a baby. So, they’re two quite huge things which are going to slow anyone down in progressing in any direction. But I do think that drive that you have to have as a PhD and that passion that you have, the challenge is to continue that into clinical practice when you go back.

I’m just getting to a point now where I’ve actually linked in with a couple of other people in a similar situation to us, where I’m going, I really want to publish, I really need to publish. And they do too. So, we’re going to actually get together and have some writing time together just online, which will be really nice work. But yeah, I can see where the challenge is if you don’t have it just given to you as a package. So, I would encourage anyone to try and find something that actually gives you the opportunity to have that protected time to do both.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. But you’re also saying that you found your tribe to help you on some of these paths.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Absolutely.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Like, you found another person who wants to write, which is really helpful. And I guess, there are lots of these clinical doctoral fellowship opportunities out there, like from the Alzheimer’s Society, from NIHR, that matched your wage. Did your fellowship match your wage, Naomi?

Dr Naomi Gallant:

More or less. It was a little bit of a drop, because obviously having been an OT for a few years, I’d gone up some increments in the scale. But I did know other people at the same time whose workplaces, they had managed to negotiate. We knew people, didn’t we, who had come from Band 7 and 8 jobs where they had managed to negotiate ways in which they could still be getting-

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. That’s what I had, actually. So, I was Band 7, and they matched my wage. So, it does depend which schemes you go to, doesn’t it? You can negotiate that wage match.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yeah.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. No. Any other tips, Emily on that front?

Dr Emily Jones:

So, I would’ve said, “Get on Twitter.” So, everything is advertised on Twitter, isn’t it? It almost feels like you build your network on Twitter and you see things, because that is your network of people, isn’t it? And I guess it depends who listens to the podcast, but there’s definitely something about how healthcare organizations promote these types of fellowships.

So, we are quite lucky where I work, because we are invested in it. So, we have two, it’s only two, but two clinical academics who are driving this work stream forward and they have a monthly newsletter and they talk about the opportunities that are out there. And I guess it’s about how people listening to this podcast might promote that within where they work already. Because if you’re a Band 5 nurse or an OT, you do your shift and rightly so, you are exhausted and you go home and you may well not think about work outside of the day-to-day, and maybe going on Twitter isn’t for you, but there’s something about how organizations promote these sort of roles and make people aware of it.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. And I think it’s probably worth saying, so I worked in Australia clinically and I think my understanding is these systems and the clinical, doctoral, so the PhD funding opportunities for clinicians are not dissimilar across places like Australia and America. And they are there, and I understand that not enough people are taking up these opportunities. So, they’re definitely there, but it’s finding them might be the issue. But like you say, Emily, that maybe it’s about working with your organization to locate where those opportunities are. That makes complete sense.

And negotiating, like you say, Naomi, to make sure that you get the means that match your wage. And actually, I would say, one of the questions I get actually is from speech therapists and occupational therapists and physios and nurses and other healthcare professionals and they often say, “Well, I was about to have a baby…” Or, “What if I have a baby?” Or “What if my partner has a baby?” Or “What if something happens?”

And the one thing I would say with my experience has been, I had a two-year-old and a five-year-old when I first started my PhD. And before I started my PhD, I’d have to go to work, it was non-negotiable, and I had to be there the whole time. Whereas when I started my PhD, if there was an assembly or a school trip, I could say, “Yeah, I can go on it.” And then, I’d do my work in the evening. And they were the things that I hadn’t really thought about, actually. I mean, I was loathe to work in the evening, but I could, I could make that decision and prioritize the assembly or whatever was happening. I felt quite lucky, actually.

Dr Emily Jones:

I think we were just talking about this before this podcast started, but the level of flexibility that you get during your PhD, I don’t think I will ever get that again.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. Do you think it’s been difficult going back then to clinical?

Dr Emily Jones:

I don’t. I mean, I probably work very differently to when I did, when I did the PhD, but the difference I guess is, you haven’t got your PhD continuously looming over you all the time. So, even though your hours are flexible, you’ve still got this massive 75,000 word thesis that you know you’ve got to write within those four years. So, I guess, the challenges just differ, don’t they?

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yeah, I think the PhD, your time is flexible, but I’m always very careful the way I say my time was split when I was doing both, because I say I had two days clinical and the rest of the time was the PhD, because actually the reality is it’s not three days PhD, it’s pretty all-consuming.

Like we were just saying beforehand, me and Emily sometimes reminisce back to the good old PhD days, because there was a lot of good, like you say about that flexibility. But actually, yeah, it is all-consuming at the same time. And I think the benefit of the clinical role is that if your boundaries are set in the right place, you can come home and then you’re not at work anymore, which you don’t really get with the PhD. But then, the PhD also has an end to it, whereas your clinical work, you’re back in that world of, “This is just my life of work now.”

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. Yeah. No, I know what you mean. The clinical stuff stops, generally-ish. You might worry about people, what they’ll think about the letter you’re going to write. But yeah, it’s not like you say, a huge thesis hanging over you, or not the same like, “What will they think of me when I stand up in front of everyone to do the presentation that I have managed to get my abstract in for? And then everyone’s going to laugh at me because they know I’m not…” It’s not quite the same, is it?

I actually feel like I’m a better clinician now. I feel like having gone and done a PhD, I know you’re right, you immerse yourself in it, in what you are doing. And now I’ve gone back to … So, I do two half days of clinical work, I say two half days, it’s not two half days. I end up doing way more than that clinically, but I definitely feel more confident. I feel like I’m a better diagnostician, I analyze things more thoroughly. I draft reports more effectively. I communicate with my peers more … I know the evidence better. I negotiate with my team. I feel more comfortable. My consultants that I work with introduced me as Dr. Volkmer. I’m like, “I’m just Anna.” But I feel like it changes things in a good way. What do you think?

Dr Emily Jones:

Yeah. I would 100% agree with that. I mean, I think a lot of my career has been right place at the right time. However, I will always stand by the fact that I don’t think I’d be in this job now if I hadn’t have done my PhD, because you get the skills, you build a network. So today somebody was talking to me about building frailty pathways, and I thought, “Well, I know somebody who was doing a PhD in frailty, I’ll just link in with him on Twitter.” And she said to me, “How do you know all these people?” And I was like, “It’s honestly just through doing that PhD, the networking and the skills that you learn to be able to network, has been really beneficial.”

And I think that’s like strategic thinking. So okay, we’re doing this but what could we do differently? And even, have we thought about a PDSA cycle? Because I don’t actually draft papers and I wouldn’t consider myself an academic now, but this-

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Sorry, what is a PDSA cycle?

Dr Emily Jones:

Oh, so it’s just a quality improvement methodology. But even just to think about, “Okay, we’re going to try this and then we’re going to analyze it and we’re going to draw the conclusions, and then we’re going to see what we could do differently.” Sort of thing. I don’t feel like I would’ve had those skills if I hadn’t have done the PhD. So, even though I’m not actively being an academic, trying to get funding, undertaking research, I use those skills every day to progress my clinical work.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

I think that’s a really good example actually, of putting those skills into clinical practice. And I think like you were saying, the questions that you ask within your clinical practice change. So again, from a team management point of view, you get a lot of people coming to you with problems and they want the people up above to hear what the issues on the ground are. And my question is always, “What is the evidence that you are bringing? What data do you have?” Because we can all anecdotally say, and we all know that it’s really hard and that we need more of this and we need more of that, but what evidence do we have to show it? And even the simplest thing as filling out stats sheets based on how long interventions have taken, how long have I taken my notes? No one’s going to know that if you don’t have the actual evidence for it.

But I don’t think that’s a question I would’ve asked if I hadn’t have gone through that PhD process. That’s not to say anyone who’s not done a PhD won’t ask that question, but for me personally, it’s just that way of thinking, “Where’s your evidence, and how are we going to produce the data?” And even, “Let’s try something new.” So, a simple example, my role is a breakfast group. “How are we going to show that this is working? Why are we doing it? What are we looking to achieve here, and how are we going to show that we’ve achieved it?”

Yeah. So, I think, one, I don’t think I’ll have gone for my role when I did, if I hadn’t have done the PhD. I think it gave me the confidence to go, “Yeah, I’ve definitely got the skills for that.” But two, I do my job so differently because of it. And also, I think adding to that is, supporting other people to do their job differently as well. And people have confidence in you, like you say, they know you’ve done the PhD. Just those two little letters before your name hold a lot of weight sometimes when it comes to actually people respecting what you’re saying or suggesting as well.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah, I agree. I think it gives you more equity, it uplifts you in many ways. But I do like your example of the breakfast club. We run a few novel groups or novel therapy interventions. So, we run a group, we call it a script group, but what I feel nowadays is that I’m more confident about developing creative groups and then outcoming them and then showing them off and saying, “This is the group we ran.” Because we have developed the data for it, and I’m going to write it up in a peer-reviewed journal article. And I will actually do that and tell other people about … I’m not going to worry about that.

I think coming back to your examples, I think also it’s how I support the people who I work with, sideways and downwards, who I support. But actually, I find myself also speaking upwards to management differently. So, when management is saying, “You need to justify your service.” I’m saying, “Yeah, we can totally do that with not only this data, but this type of data and this other type of data. I’m extremely confident with the data I’ve got, and I’m not intimidated by that request for data.” I can show you data till it’s coming out of my ears, and to justify this.

It’s made me much more comfortable with those conversations that I think can be very scary, because if you’re working … Especially, we were talking earlier on about the current National Health Service in the UK and how frustrating it can be at the moment to be practicing and with cost-cutting. But actually, I feel more confident that I have the weapons to justify why we are here.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

It reminds me as well, another good thing about the clinical academic route is that in my clinical role, this might be personal to me, but my clinical role within the PhD, I was supernumerary to the teams, which put me at a really massive advantage for trying new things, for doing different things, because I wasn’t really counted in the numbers. You do get sucked into them, but it meant I had the opportunity and I could go, “I’m going to go and shadow this group of people today.” You can really take your head out of the team that you’re in.

And I got the opportunity within my clinical role during the PhD, to sit on board panels, to sit in high up meetings, and actually experience those side of things, which seem unattainable if you are a Band 5 or a Band 6, or even a Band 7 clinician, going to some of these places. And then that also gives you the skills to be able to have those conversations once you go back into clinical work.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

And what I’m hearing is, that’s not a luxury, that’s actually an important skill.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I’ve had people say to me, “Surely doing a PhD is a bit of a luxury.” And I feel it really is not. It’s just a different path.

Dr Emily Jones:

I remember when I first started, actually, so when I went onto one of the wards where I was working, when I was doing the clinical academic PhD, somebody said to me, “Well, how is that going to help us, that you’re over there just doing that and we’re working here clinically?” And I was quite affected by that at the time.

And it’s not until you get to the end of it and you think, “Actually, if none of us thought long-term or tried to change things, we’d be in the same place we’ve always been.” Isn’t it? And I think it is a change of mindset, but actually, if we didn’t have people researching and working out how we could do things differently, we’d never move on.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

No. And the networks you can build. So, one of my PhD mentors is a neurologist and they didn’t have a speech therapist in their clinic. And as a result of him mentoring me, we then put a business plan together and we now have a speech language therapy service in that clinic. But that happened as a result of me collaborating with him and creating a new service through that kind of clinical academic partnership. Have you ever had anybody Google you since you’ve done a PhD, have you had that, like a client or a family member?

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Not that I know of.

Dr Emily Jones:

No.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I’ve had that happen. I’ve had people Google me before they come to an outpatient appointment, because they get their letters and it says, “You’re going to see Anna for…” And then they say, “We Googled you before you came and we know you know what you’re talking about, because you’ve got a PhD.” And I think, “Ooh, I had never expected that to happen.”

Dr Naomi Gallant:

No. Certainly in my setting, I don’t think any of the patients that I see would know, unless I told them. I still haven’t changed my name badge to have doctor on it. The staff know. And I had a very lovely consultant … Because I actually started this role six months before completing the PhD. So, my last six months of the PhD were working in this role and finishing off. So, they were with me on that celebration of achieving it and I went off to do my Viva and came back.

So, it was quite nice because the team there were part of that, rather than it being a separate thing that I came … And they saw that. So, the staff very much like that and the consultant particularly. But no, the people I see day-to-day, I don’t think they would know. It’s on my email signature.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

That’s good. Good, good, I like that. I like that. So, if I now said to you, and we’ve been talking a bit about the pros and cons, but if I asked you more explicitly, what do you think the pros and cons are of doing just academia or just NHS, or maybe you preference a bit of a mixture? Do you think there are any, or do you think it’s a mixed bag? Emily, maybe you start.

Dr Emily Jones:

Yeah. So, I don’t know if it’s a con. I think there’s a definite challenge to be able to pursue a true clinical academic career, following these types of fellowships. So, it isn’t a luxury, but it is such an opportunity to be able to undertake those fellowships. And when you come out, you are almost a little bit disillusioned that that is how things are going to go when you leave.

So, Naomi and I were often thinking about how will we still continue a true clinical academic career? And I think we’ve had to take the clinical route, and I know people that have undertaken the academic route, and I still think we are struggling to find true clinical academic career. So, Anna, you have one, which is amazing, but I feel like you probably had to develop that path yourself.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yes, that’s exactly right. I agree with you, because I think, I’m going back to some of those mentors again who are not allied health or nurses, and I’ve had conversations with medical professionals where they’ve said, “Oh, is there not a job that you can get in allied health, where you are a clinical academic?” I said, “They just don’t really exist.”

So, I have, you’re right, Emily, I think I’ve patched-worked together a slightly complicated job role, and that’s maybe something … But having said that, I think things were improving. Since I started my PhD back in 2015, I don’t feel like there were many at all, clinical academics, allied health or nurses. And now I think there’s more pathways opened. It’s more that our professional organizations are recognizing it more. I feel like if the next people coming through, there’ll be more paths forged and there’ll be more voices to make this pathway clearer.

Dr Emily Jones:

But I think the conversation that we’ve just been having, we are always, no matter what we’re doing day-to-day, going to be clinical academics, because we’ve always got that skillset, haven’t we? So, whether you go into academia, you’re still going to have that clinical background. And if you go into clinical full-time, you’re still going to have those academic skills. So, even though you might not be doing an 80/20 split per se, you’re always going to be a clinical academic, aren’t you? And you’ve got the opportunity to step back into academia if you want to or go back into clinical work if you want to. And I think that’s probably the best pro, isn’t it, you’ve got that?

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yeah. I was going to say, yeah, in response to what you think, because it’s, what is a clinical academic career, what does that look like? But actually, I’ve had to grapple with that myself over the years. And actually, I still will hold onto that identity as I am still a clinical academic. It’s just that I’m not, like you say, 80% within NHS trust, 20% with the university or something.

I think there’s more I could do to keep that open and I think there’s a high risk of getting stuck in one or the other. But it is about balancing up your personal life as well. For me, I was actually … So, straight after the PhD finished, I relocated back to be nearer family, but I was offered an opportunity to have both, but it would’ve meant staying in the area. And for us personally and my family life, that just wasn’t going to happen. And we all have different priorities at different times in our life.

And then one of the things the PhD, I’d say one of the pros, is what Emily alluded to earlier about the networking and actually based where we were, you had the trust networks, you had the university networks, but what I did was sacrifice those by relocating in the country and almost lost those networks. I didn’t lose them, but suddenly geography played a part.

But like you say, you’ve got the skills … I think for me, a lot of it is that still the future is bright. There’s so much we could do. There are so many directions I could go in. And I like what you do, Anna, where you’ve got lecturing as well. And I know that those options are still open to me. I could go and teach in a university. I could go up the band in the NHS. I could go into an academic role because you can’t undo the grounding that you’ve done.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah, you’ve got choices and you’ve just illustrated, Naomi, you had choices there. You were offered one route and you had choices. I agree, I think it opens up a wealth of routes that you might not realize were there.

So, my last, last question, it’s a bit of a roundup really. What advice would you give to any nurse, occupational therapist, speech and language therapist, or any other health or even social care professional thinking of embarking on an academic career?

Dr Naomi Gallant:

I mean, for a start, I would just say absolutely go for it, if that’s something that’s interesting and people have a passion about, because often it is because you have a passion about a particular area as well. I think we’ve all gone into our lines of work because we care about the people that we work and do it for. I’d say, definitely pursue it, would be my first thing. But then I think I would probably go a step further and help, perhaps look at where you can get those funding streams, because I do think that is one of the biggest worries that people might have.

Yeah. I mean, I’m sure I’ll come off of this podcast and think of many more things I could have said at this point, but I think my main message would be, just go for it. Because what I used to say to people when I said, “Oh, I’m about to do a PhD.” And they were like, “Why?” And I was like, “Sometimes you don’t know why, but you’re pushing open a door and you don’t know what’s on the other side, but there’s something better, there’s something good, and there’s going to be something more that wouldn’t have been there if I didn’t open it.” So, that was what I would say.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Nice. I like that. Emily?

Dr Emily Jones:

Yeah. I mean, I can only echo what Naomi said. I don’t know if we said it during this podcast or just before, but those four years were the best four years of my whole career. You are just meeting so many people, learning so many skills, having so many opportunities that you wouldn’t have. And like I said, I don’t think I would be in the job I am in now without it.

I think my advice would be, reach out to anyone. I have not met one single person that wouldn’t want to help somebody pursue this career. So, send the direct message on Twitter, get someone’s email, and I think the type of people that go for those opportunities want others to go for it. So, just send that direct message on Twitter, is all I can say, because you are only going to get positive feedback.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yeah. I would definitely say Twitter is your friend as well, because I went on Twitter professionally just before embarking on the PhD. And honestly, the networking, the people that you meet through that, and then when you meet in person at conferences, you’re just building this really valuable network that is still there to this day.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. And I always also say, that as a clinician, you often come with a network.

Dr Naomi Gallant:

Yes.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Because the network that you bring as a clinician is your impact, your dissemination, and you often don’t realize you’ve got that. So, you come with a network, you build more of a network, and then you leave with a greater network of different people. Yeah, no, it makes sense. I’m mindful of time. That probably wraps it up for today. So, thank you to our guests, Emily, and Naomi. It’s been such an interesting discussion and highlights that you can, so we’re highlighting for our listeners that you can be a clinician and then do a PhD, and then go back to clinical work or stay in academia, or do a bit of both, or do a bit first and then do a bit of something else later. Indeed, we all feel it probably not only makes you a better clinician, but opens up lots more pathways, lots more opportunities.

Now, we all have profiles as panelists on the website, including details of our Twitter accounts. So, please do take a look. And finally, please remember to like, subscribe, in whichever app you’re listening to, and remember to visit the Dementia Researcher website where we publish new content every single day, from careers and science blogs, job listings, funding calls and events, and so much, much more. And some of my own blogs. But for now, have a great day. Thank you for listening. Bye, everybody.

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