Could you tell us about your background and career up until this point?

I studied pharmacy in undergraduate. While working in a hospital, I developed an interest in the big picture of the health and care services. So, I moved to work at a research centre as a project manager for a survey on primary care prescriptions and services. The work opened my eyes on the role of economics in resource allocation for health and social care services. It motivated me to pursue an MSc in Health Policy and Health Economics, and later a PhD in Health Services and Systems Research. I officially graduated from my PhD on January 2020 and just before the first COVID national lockdown on March 2020, I joined King’s as a Research Fellow in Health Economics.

Since joining King’s as a Research Fellow what has your work focused on?

In the past 4 years at King’s I have worked on applied research and methodological research. Besides research, I also teach in the Master of Public Health (MPH) and the online MSc Public Health programmes, as well as supervise student dissertations.

For applied research, I support the economic evaluation (cost-effectiveness analysis) in two National Institute for Health & Care Research (NIHR)-funded clinical trials.I am currently also serving as a co-investigator in another two NIHR-funded projects. For methodological research, I have performed validation studies of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for various health conditions and have also compared and made recommendations on how to select checklists to rate methodological quality and transferability of economic evaluations.

You may view the full list of my research work here. I am looking to expand my research and teaching portfolio so if my skills could add value to your upcoming project(s) or your prospective PhD student(s), please get in touch.

In addition to my roles at King's I co-chair the Early Career Research and Teaching Network (ECRTN) in the School and I am involved with various health economics professional societies.

What groups and professional societies are you involved with?

As mentioned, I co-chair the ECRTN for the School; it is a network of early career research and teaching staff within the School of Life Course & Population Sciences (SLCPS).

Outside King’s , I have been a member of three health economics professional societies – the Professional Society for Health Economics & Outcomes Research (ISPOR), Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) and the International Health Economics Association (IHEA). I am particularly active in ISPOR – I started as a leader in its Student Chapter at National University of Singapore where I did my PhD, before transitioning to become a member of its New Professionals Committee upon graduation. I am currently the Chair-Elect of its Precision Medicine & Advanced Therapies (PMAT) Special Interest Group (SIG).

I also connect with fellow Malaysians in the UK through the Malaysian Association of Postgraduates & Professionals (MAPP), where I serve as the Secretary.

How did you get involved with the ECRTN within the School and what does this role involve?

When I first joined KCL, my line manager introduced to me Dr James Gooch, the Chair of the ECRTN back then. I started as a committee member. Later when Dr Emma Rezel-Potts and Dr Ellen Thompson took over as co-chairs, I volunteered as its Communication Lead. When both stepped down in September 2023, Dr Bethany Jakubowski (from the Department of Women’s & Children’s Health) and I stepped up as the new co-chairs.

The ECRTN is a network of early career research and teaching staff within SLCPS who provide peer support to each other. Currently, the ECRTN Committee comprises of 7 research staff, 3 lecturers and 1 clinical academic fellow. The Committee organises ECRTN activities and facilitates communication between early career research and teaching staff with the SLCPS leadership.

The committee members meet monthly to discuss issues affecting early career research and teaching staff and to brainstorm activities that would benefit us and our colleagues. Among the activities we organised last year were a grant writing experience sharing session (May 2023), a writing day (August 2023) and early Christmas social (November 2023). This year, we plan to organise similar activities, starting with a goal-setting workshop in March 2024.

We also have regular meetings with the School Manager on issues related to ECRTs which we discuss ahead in our committee meetings.

Dr Ka Keat Lim on systematic literature reviews

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Dr Ka Keat Lim

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