BSMS > Research > Primary care and public health > Primary care > Integrated Academic Training

Integrated Academic Training

Welcome to our information page about the department of Primary Care and Public Health's integrated academic training. Here you will find further information about our team of researchers, supervisors and mentors, as well as about the work we do.

Whether you are joining the department as part of the NIHR integrated academic training (IAT) track, or other locally coordinated fellowships, we will support your development as a clinical academic, with opportunities to develop skills in medical education, as well as primary care and public health research.

If you have any further questions, or would like to discuss the possibility of working with us, do get in touch. Dr Duncan Shrewsbury is the department's lead for academic training, and the team at PrimaryCareDA@bsms.ac.uk will be able to coordinate a call or meeting.

Potential supervisors/mentors

Professor Harm van Marwijk: is Head of the Department of PCPH and is a part-time general practitioner in Whitehawk, Brighton. His research interests include co-design, the management of medically unexplained symptoms such as chronic pain, implementation science, frailty, mental health, data-science, medical education and disadvantaged communities. He has co-authored 266 papers in Pubmed, with Web of Science H-Index 43 and Scopus 45.

Dr Elizabeth Ford: is a Senior Lecturer in Primary Care Research. She has a background in mental health and epidemiology with special focus on methods development, data quality, and public engagement for research using primary care electronic health records (EHRs) data. She has extensive experience of working across disciplinary boundaries between medicine, psychology, social sciences, physics, maths and computer science, and can support a wide range of research methodologies including qualitative, quantitative and systematic reviews. Her core clinical interests are perinatal mental health and dementia.

Dr Duncan Shrewsbury: is a Reader in Clinical Education & Primary Care and leads the clinical & community practice component of the first two years of the undergraduate medical curriculum, and a part-time general practitioner in Brighton. They are actively involved in national organisations (RCGP, Society of Academic Primary Care) and international organisations (National Institute for Health). Research interests include medical education (specifically learners with disabilities, difficulties and support needs) and clinical research interests include mental health and LGBT health inequalities.

A typical Academic FY (AFP) experience

Our academic foundation programme (AFP) trainees typically join the department full-time for 4 months as part of their second foundation year. In this time, they are supported in being introduced to research design, and have the opportunity to contribute to ongoing projects. Some trainees choose to plan ahead, and are supported in designing a research project, and in securing ethical approval prior to starting their post. They then have the full 4 months to collect and analyze data. Many trainees have been successful in undertaking projects this way, and publishing their work in peer reviewed journals. The AFP does also offers a medical education focus, whereby trainees can work alongside experienced educationalists on curriculum design and delivery.

A typical academic GP trainee (ACF) experience

A typical academic GP trainee (ACF) experience would look like:

Fellows’ progress will be tracked against the following milestones, with the aim being that successful completion of the fellowship would prepare the candidate to apply for funding for a further three-year full-time clinical research doctoral programme (PhD or MD) with anticipated progression to ACL or similar posts within BSMS:

Years 1 and 2

Initial clinical training in General Practice will be assessed using the national measures (Workplace based assessments) and by quarterly meetings with the educational supervisor
Attendance at relevant programmes run by the Postgraduate School/Clinical Academic Training Scheme.
Identification of research question to be addressed in pilot study or systematic review through an iterative process of discussion and planning with the academic supervisor(s)
Identification of specific learning needs for the project and appropriate courses and identification of ongoing projects to be involved with
Obtaining ethical committee and NHS Research & Development approval for exploratory project as appropriate and initial generation of pilot data
Initiation of relationship with academic department, and planning of development needs Attendance at relevant internal and external training courses and attendance at annual national/international conferences of relevance to the project

Years 3 and 4

Continuation of General Practice component of clinical training on a less-than-full-time (LTFT) basis
Data collection and presentation at national/international conference(s)
Writing up and submission of pilot research project, and/or other research for publication as appropriate
Preparation for research training fellowship interview.

Overview of Supervision and Clinical Training

The fellowship will formally begin after the candidate has successfully completed the first two years of their GP training (i.e. the fellowship spans ST3 and 4). From when the candidate begins their specialty training, they will be paired with a mentor within the department, who will support and guide any preparatory work and development for when they commence their fellowship. Whilst in the department, the candidate will have an appointed academic supervisor – a clinician with experience in both GP training and research, as well as a supervisor for research and masters study.

The department of Primary Care and Public Health has a heritage of supporting doctors in training from academic foundation and specialty training programmes (NIHR and locally funded). There are extensive opportunities to develop skills in, and engage with a wide range of scholarly and teaching activity, as well as strong strands of established research activity, led by experienced academics.

Regional GP training has a strong reputation for innovative and high-quality training, supporting the development of high-calibre and successful GP trainees. Available clinical placements span a wide range of settings across primary and secondary care, as well as rural, urban and inner-city settings. Trainees in the region benefit from a tailored and flexible teaching programme, with a track-record for resulting in a high first-sit pass rate for MRCGP assessments.

Department’s Research Excellence

The department has strong working relationships with local stakeholders, including Public Health, the Local Authority, CCGs, and 3rd sector organisations. Through support from the school and external funders, we have secured a clinical practice research datalink (CPRD) dataset of linked primary care, hospital, mental health, cancer registry, deprivation and death registration data for 1.6 million over 65-year-old patients from England. Members of our department have been instrumental in the development of the Sussex Integrated Dataset (SID), through our established working relationships with local stakeholders in Public Health at the local authority and NHS organisations. Together these datasets form rich resources for epidemiology training centred on describing and understanding health inequalities locally and nationally. Our department also supports a range of social science projects which underpin our understanding of quality and content of routinely collected clinical data sets.

Key questions for research projects are likely to align with our local ARC priorities around coastal inequalities, access to primary health care, mental health, and factors influencing delay in diagnosis and inequalities in treatment and outcomes in cancer, dementia and other diseases of ageing in older people from disadvantaged backgrounds.