July 08, 2025

Meet Dr David Gillanders - The University of Edinburgh

24 minutes

Hi there and a very warm welcome to Season 6 Episode 29 of People Soup, it's Ross McIntosh here.

P-Soupers - In this episode you'll get to meet Dr David Gillanders who is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist and Senior Lecturer at The University of Edinburgh. His research programme explores psychological wellbeing in advanced illness, cancer, and persistent health problems. It's the second of a three parter - last week I chatted with David's colleague, Dr Anne Finucane and in the third part - I'll talk to both Anne and David about their brilliant website - mygriefmyway.co.uk

In this episode we get to know a bit more about David. He shares his career journey and how he landed in clinical psychology thanks, in part, to some advice from a career counsellor. David sets out a series of opportunistic shifts in his career and the profound impact of ACT, in both his professional and personal life. He talks about his research interest and his collaborative research with Anne, where they focus on palliative care, the wellbeing of people who work in palliative care AND bereavement. David is open about his personal growth and how his flexibility and perspectives have grown over his career.

For those of you who are new to People Soup - welcome - it's great to have you here - I aim to provide you with ingredients for a better work life from behavioural science and beyond. For those of you who are regular P Soupers - thanks for tuning in - we love it that you're part of our community.

There is a transcript for each episode. There is a caveat - this transcript is largely generated by Artificial Intelligence, I have corrected many errors but I won't have captured them all! You can also find the shownotes by clicking on notes then keep scrolling for all the useful links.