SITU - Surgical Trials Intervention Unit 

EMCAT study 

Oxford-Berlin Partnership for Enhancing Measurement in Clinical Trials 

I am a clinical academic, spending half my time as a postdoctoral researcher at NDORMS, and the other half in the NHS as an honorary specialist registrar in plastic and reconstructive surgery. My work applies data science to improve the way we measure healthcare outcomes. Valid, accurate and interpretable outcome measurement is important for studying the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of different treatments, and also for benchmarking and quality improvement exercises, clinical commissioning, and helping patients to make informed decisions about their care. My current workstreams include the EMCAT study and the Oxford-Berlin Partnership for Enhancing Measurement in Clinical Trials.

Previously, I studied medicine at Imperial College London before moving to Oxford in 2015 to undertake Academic Foundation and Core Surgical Training programmes. I then completed an NIHR-funded DPhil at Oxford, where I was a Clarendon Scholar. My thesis looked at the potential for modern psychometric techniques (item response theory and computerised adaptive testing) to improve patient-reported outcome measurement in reconstructive surgery. In 2022, I was awarded a Hunterian Professorship from the Royal College of Surgeons of England for my work on surgical outcome measurement more generally. I then completed a post-doctoral NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship before taking up my lectureship in 2026. I’m now embedded in the Furniss Group and the Surgical Intervention Trials Unit within NDORMS, studying contemporary measurement science, and how this might interface with advances in trial methodology, routine data capture, and patient care.

Increasingly, machine learning is becoming a powerful tool for the development, implementation and analysis of healthcare measures. I teach both psychometrics and machine learning theory to MSc students at NDORMs, and co-lead the musculoskeletal AI working group at the department. I provide both internal and external DPhil/PhD supervision for projects involving surgical outcome measurement, psychometrics and machine learning.

Besides my work on theoretical and applied measurement science, I have also completed an MBA with research into value-based healthcare models within the NHS, and spent time as a scholar at NICE, where I was involved in evidence review for pharmaceutical market access decisions.

Outside of NDORMs, I sit on:

• The Interventional Procedures Advisory Committee at NICE, co-developing guidance on the use of novel procedures in the NHS;
• The NIHR Health Technology Assessment funding committee (Clinical Evaluation and Trials), where we make research commissioning decisions for major, publicly-funded, clinical trials; and
• The British Society for Surgery of the Hand Research Committee, which steers the society's research agenda.