Background as a statistician and how this relates to a development lead role

I joined Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences (NDS) SITU in November 2018 as the Trials Development Lead and I’m also the lead statistician for a couple of the NDS trials, including PART. After working in epidemiology for a year after I finished studying, I moved to the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre at the University of Sydney in 2012 (mostly to escape the UK weather!) and began working across a variety of clinical trials in oncology, cardiology and neonatology. I have continued working in this area ever since. I came back to the UK in 2016 and worked in early breast cancer trials at Nuffield Department of Population Health (NDPH) before moving to NDS.

The role is extremely varied and I love the challenge of taking an important clinical concept and turning it into a viable clinical trial which will go on to change clinical practice and make a difference to patients. I also enjoy working within the multidisciplinary teams that are required for trials to be successful, from the initial concept to the final analyses and reporting. I think my training as a statistician and trial methodologist has helped significantly in this role and experience of writing publications has helped with grant writing.

8(-8.30)am:

• Say hello to everyone on teams whilst drinking the first coffee of the day.
• Check emails, respond to emails and spend some time going through my to-do list for the week.

9:30-12pm:

• Back to back meetings!
• First is my weekly catch up with the global health team in NDS who have a couple of exciting proposals for trials.
• Discussion with one of our current CIs about a proposal for a new glioblastoma trial. Talking through the study hypothesis, trial design and number of patients that would potentially be required.
• TMG meeting about a breast cancer trial which is in the final stages of funding with the NIHR (the whole process from the first submission to funding letter takes around a year).

12-1pm:

• Lunch and also a chance to get another coffee (finally!). I try and also go for a walk at lunch times so I don’t spend my whole day sat in the same room.

1-2pm:

• Meeting with the CRN to review a SoECAT we have submitted for review for a trial that is about to be submitted as a stage 1 application to the NIHR.

2-4pm:

• Some time to catch up on emails, do some grant writing and slowly make my way through my to-do list.

4-5pm:

• Final meeting of the day- a catch up with the health economics team at NDPH who are supporting a new prostate cancer trial that has just been funded.