Nurturing future research leaders
An interview with Dr Kristin Veighey, Clinical Research Physician, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust (UHS)
As the training lead for medical clinical research fellows, Dr Kristin Veighey aims to identify and promote research training opportunities for current and future healthcare professionals. In her unique role within UHS Research and Development (R&D), Kristin brings teams together, builds research networks and supports the set up and delivery of studies across a wide range of areas.
As a Consultant Nephrologist and a CRN Wessex renal research champion, Kristin also works clinically, splitting her time between UHS and the renal unit at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust. Alongside colleagues, she aims to grow and strengthen Wessex’s portfolio of renal research.
In this interview with VISION magazine, Kristin talks about nurturing future research leaders, her path in research and embedding research into everyday clinical practice.
Nurturing future research leaders
"I’ve been in this role for just over three years. I spend a lot of time supporting others involved in research delivery. I’m on the ground helping research fellows and nurses. If they’ve got a problem, they usually come to me first and we try to solve it. My role is about connecting people and creating opportunities to help move them forward.
“There’s a challenge across the board for people to have funded time to do research. And, even if you have the time, there’s challenges in protecting it. We try to create a good environment where people can flourish. We try to include as many people as possible and support the whole multidisciplinary group of researchers. I think the CRN Wessex research fellows programme is important because it really shows how fellows can make an impact on recruitment.
“It’s getting more common for junior doctors to do CV building years and research can be part of that. We support them with publishing abstracts and presenting at conferences to help move their career forwards in the hope that they will either come back to us later to do some research or get engaged with research in whatever job they do next.
“I talk to the senior house officers and registrars about research a lot. I try to get people to think about research and think about it early. Even if you’re not interested in doing just research, that doesn’t mean you can’t get involved or co-investigate on some studies.
“From a trainee perspective, it’s really confusing with everybody around you saying why they do things in certain ways. When I’m on the wards, I explain to trainees that we do things either because there isn’t a lot of evidence so we base our practice on expert experience, or because there was a study and it showed the best way.”
“I think research unites people in doing some good for patients”
Embedding research
“What we try to do here is make sure everyone knows what’s going on. You may not be directly involved in research, but you help by talking to the patients about it. Patients like to know that you’re endorsing research even if it’s not your project directly.
“For me, it’s important to encourage everyone to get involved. It’s making sure that everyone is aware of the research projects and the kind of patients we’re looking for. I think research unites people in doing some good for patients and I think patients feel that if you’re offering research, you’re an institution that’s on top of its game and trying to push things forward. They feel you’ll be able to offer them the best treatment because you’ll be involved with what’s new and cutting edge.”
“My role is about connecting people and creating opportunities to help move them forward.”
Developing a career in research
“I went to medical school in Belfast and I did all my junior training in and around Wessex. I did nephrology training in London and I remember my supervisor sitting down with me on day one and saying, ‘Right, what are you going to do your research project on?’
“Clinical research is clearly how you improve clinical practice. My subsequent clinical supervisor was talking to me about doing a fellowship in the Clinical Trials Unit and I thought that might be quite useful. And they then advertised for a clinical fellow to do a randomised control trial of a novel vitamin D therapy in transplant patients and I applied and got that job. When it came to looking for consultant jobs, I couldn’t imagine something which didn’t involve research.
“Now, I’ve got a 60% consultant nephrologist role and the other 40% of the time I work as a clinical research physician. Having worked in medicine for a while now, it feels like we’re at a point where things are really moving forwards in so many clinical areas. There’s new treatments for everything and it’s hard to keep up to speed, but it’s so exciting to see how clinical research impacts on practice and improves patient care.
“My main research has been in remote ischaemic preconditioning (RIPC). I was also a key part of a team which completed a multicentre, multinational, NIHR-funded study which demonstrated that RIPC can improve kidney function after transplantation. I have performed mechanistic studies in healthy volunteers and patients with chronic kidney disease, both developing novel models and refining existing models. Looking ahead, I’d hope to gain a postdoctoral fellowship to help me build my career as a clinical academic."
