Another first for Researcher Revealed, this week’s episode I host a Women’s Health Research Midwife! Susara Blunden tells a tale of two halves: from gorgeous handbags working in Hedge funds in London to wearing scrubs and working on developing her career as a researcher. Her passion is inspiring, and I was loved hearing thie similarities and differences there were between a midwife’s and nurse’s career pathway as a researcher.

Top 3 Takeaways

1) Pathways into a research career are diverse

2) More support is needed for those in research delivery to advance their research career aspirations

3) Is research embedded in your clinical practice?

Bio: Susara Blunden is a Women's Health Research Midwife in the NHS and a master’s in research student at Bournemouth University on the NIHR funded INSIGHT programme. She currently investigating the secondary care endometriosis diagnostic pathways in the NHS and other high-income countries. After graduating with a BSc in Midwifery from Bournemouth University in 2014, she worked clinically for a few years before moving into NHS research delivery. She has extensive experience in research, from setting up research in clinical environments, recruiting participants, to collecting data for a wide range of studies and trials. She was key in delivering projects which explored topics such as obstetric anaesthesia, hypertensive disorders; pregnancy and non-pregnancy related, smoking cessation, preterm birth prevention, stillbirth and miscarriage reduction. She was a Principal Investigator on several of these projects. She is a member of the NIHR Reproductive Health and Childbirth National Research Champions Group helping to maintain and build research capacity regionally and nationally. 

Find Susara online:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/susara-blunden-6a0a74138/

Susara’s Research:

Coming soon!

Susara is reading:

Whale Bone Theatre by Joanna Quinn

Resources:

1)     The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

2)     Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life, Patterns, Proteins and Peace: A Life in Science by Georgina Ferry

3)     NIHR Principal Investigator training programs:

-  Associate PI Scheme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at5PM61X0Yw

-  PIPP: https://www.nihr.ac.uk/career-development/clinical-research-courses-and-support/principal-investigator-pipeline-programme

4)     Being a PI as a nurse on medication trials (CTIMPS) https://youtu.be/JRZT_p3fHfk

Find Dr Rosalynn Austin

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-rosalynn-austin-147b3980/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosalynnaustin/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RosalynnAustin

Experience the adventures Dr Rosalynn Austin takes while travelling on @tea-riffictravels

The podcast content is the personal opinions and experiences of the researchers (Dr Rosalynn Austin and Susara Blunden) and not that of any of their affiliated institutions.

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