Jennifer Lane

Jenny studied undergraduate medicine at Exeter College, Oxford, where she was awarded Scholar status. Graduating from clinical medicine in 2010, she undertook basic medical and surgical training in London. In 2014, Jenny graduated with distinction from Masters of Surgical Education degree at Imperial College, London, and returned to Oxford as NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow and Specialist Registrar in Orthopaedic Surgery. She was awarded a Versus Arthritis Clinical Research Fellowship and a MRC Doctoral Training Fellowship in July 2017, and began her DPhil in the Epidemiology of Common Hand Conditions in December 2017.

Main research interests

International real world data in surgical and device epidemiology (OHDSI)

In the post doctoral space Jenny is building upon her DPhil research in international federated network analyses to generate large scale collaborative epidemiological studies. Working within the OHDSI data science community, her research aims to use real world data to improve our understanding of surgical treatments and populations, in addition to the role of surgical devices in routine clinical practice. Her initial interest in hand surgery led her to lead the British Society for Surgery of the Hand (BSSH) first studyathon in September 2021, where a group of 30 surgeons and data scientists aimed to characterise patients presenting with wrist arthritis. Her future work aims to continue to work with global partners to focus on other areas of trauma and orthopaedic surgical disease where evidence in routine clinical practice is lacking, or rare diseases lend themselves to observational research methods.

Epidemiology of common hand conditions

During her DPhil, Jenny worked with Professor Dominic Furniss and Professor Dani Prieto Alhambra within NDORMS alongside Professor Jane Green in the Nuffield Department of Population Health. She is interested in how big data can be recycled to improve our understanding of hand disease and the role of surgery within treatment. 

Her Versus Arthritis and MRC sponsored project aimed to improve our understanding of the the surgical management of common hand conditions using routinely collected UK GP and hospital data. Initially the work focussed upon investigating trends in surgery, and factors associated with adverse outcomes, before moving to compare UK data with other countries, in order to explore differences in surgeon, hospital and healthcare factors that may impact outcomes from surgery.  

Impact of hormones on musculoskeletal conditions

As part of her DPhil study Jenny is also investigated the role of hormonal factors upon the development and progression of carpal tunnel syndrome and base of thumb osteoarthritis. Using the Million Women Study, she explored reproductive and menopausal factors that may be implicated in developing surgical disease. She is also investigated the interaction of hormonal treatments with musculoskeletal disease to better characterise the role of hormonal factors. 

Surgical Education 

Jenny has undertaken qualitative research investigating the impact of the introduction of the major trauma network upon higher orthopaedic training, and the results debated at a national level.  Passionate about improving surgical training, she co-led a redesign of the University’s undergraduate orthopaedic trauma surgery programme with Mr Steve Gwilym, incorporating new elements of simulation technology to enrich the course. She has previously been an educational supervisor for the medical school, and was a surgical tutor at Exeter College, Oxford. She currently lectures in 'Big Data' for the Masters course in Surgical Science & Practice, University of Oxford in addition to the NDORMS Introductory DPhil lecture series.