King's College London

King’s Health Partners (KHP) comprises King’s College London and its partnering NHS Trusts. Nine of the KHP awardees have secured National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Predoctoral Awards. They include specialist mental health dietitian Namrata Dhopatkar, midwife Sophie Webster, and specialist paediatric allergy dietitian Anna Conrad. This is an incredible achievement that reflects the excellent training environment at KHP, since the NIHR only offers around 50 awards in each round. In addition to this, Emily Stynes, Highly Specialist Eating Disorders Dietitian and Specialist Mental Health Dietitian at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, was awarded an NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) Introductory Clinical Research Training Fellowship.

The NIHR Predoctoral Award helps research-active health and social care professionals who are not doctors or dentists to develop their research skills. The award funds a master’s degree or bespoke training, as well as protected time to develop a PhD application. The NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) Introductory Clinical Research Training Fellowship supports KHP-affiliated nurses, midwives and allied health professionals (NMAHPs) develop a clinical academic career in mental health or neuroscience research. It provides two years of funding, offering protected time from clinical duties when fellows can work alongside research teams and develop their academic skills.

Anna Conrad intends to use the funding to undertake a master’s degree in clinical research. Her work at Evelina London Children’s Hospital focuses on allergy, and she has a particular interest in milk oral immunotherapy, a new treatment in the UK for inducing tolerance of milk in children. Anna hopes that the Predoctoral Award will improve her chances of winning a PhD fellowship, allow her to make contacts in the world of research and, ultimately, help her decide whether research is something she enjoys. “Research gives you a wider reach,” Anna explained. “In the clinic, you can share information one-to-one with a patient, but it is limited to that setting. Some research in allergy has had a truly lifechanging impact across clinical practice.”

Namrata Dhopatkar also has a dietetic background. She works with anorexia nervosa patients at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Namrata has worked on research projects in the past, and she feels that there is a research-positive culture at the Maudsley. Namrata is interested in the role of the gut microbiome in eating disorders, and she will use the award to fund a master’s degree in clinical research methods. She is hoping to conduct a survey on gut symptoms in eating disorder patients, providing a basis for a PhD project in the future. “It felt like the right step,” Namrata said, reflecting on why she applied for the award. “I’ve always seen myself doing a combined role, and I’ve got the research bug now!”

Emily Stynes’s strong interest in research has been evident throughout her academic studies. She completed an MSc in Dietetics, including a dissertation investigating the link between nutrition and mental health in university students. During her BSc in Human Nutrition, she undertook a 10-month internship in the Western Human Nutrition Research Centre, California, USA. In recent years, Emily has developed her clinical expertise and now feels ready to return to research. “Research and clinical work are two key skills, and it’s important to be able to balance them,” Emily explained. “I’ve always had a research-minded way of thinking, so the learning curve for me has been adapting to the fast pace of clinical work. I’ve learned that effective clinical practice requires the ability to move fluidly between the bigger picture and the finer details of a patients care.”

Many of the awardees received support from King’s Clinical Academic Training Office (KCATO) and A Centre of Research for Nurses and Midwives (ACORN) at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. Dr Sam Irving, KCATO Associate Director Professions Allied to Healthcare, said: “All our predoctoral awardees should be extremely proud of themselves, these are highly competitive awards and the standard really is so high at the moment. I’ve loved working with our new awardees and I am so excited to see their clinical academic careers progress.”