SITU - Surgical Trials Intervention Unit 

EMCAT study 

Oxford-Berlin Partnership for Enhancing Measurement in Clinical Trials 

I am a clinical academic, spending 75% of my time in the NHS as a specialist registrar in plastic and reconstructive surgery, and 25% of my time as a postdoctoral researcher at NDORMS. 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’m now embedded in the Surgical Intervention Trials Unit within NDORMS, learning how contemporary measurement science might interface with advances in trial methodology. Besides my work on theoretical 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.