Ben Bowers, assistant professor from the University of Cambridge, has built a cross disciplinary research team who are conducting research focused on palliative (end of life) care. For me the most inspiring part of our conversation –yes, the mixture of expertise that he works with, but more so, how he is now supplementing his rigorous methods with creative methods. He includes his team members in both types of methods! Listen to hear how he has done this and check out the first publication listed below to see an example of how he makes this work!

Top 3 Takeaways

1)     Be a troublemaker

2)     Borrow expertise

3)     Access existing resources

Bio: Ben is an internationally recognised clinical academic community nurse. He is an Assistant Professor of Primary Care at the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Nurse Consultant in Palliative Care. Ben leads a programme of interdisciplinary research focused on improving care for patients dying at home, incorporating the voices and experiences of patients, families and clinical care teams. In 2023, he was recognised as one of the 75 nurses and midwives whose work has had a particularly significant impact on the NHS since its creation. He is a Fellow of the Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing and received the RCGP and Society for Academic Primary Care Outstanding Early Career Researcher Award 2024 for his exceptional contributions to primary care research.

Find Ben online:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-ben-bowers-9157aa45/

Research webpage (accessible resource of research Ben is leading) https://new.express.adobe.com/webpage/8yokfmRZ27FDi

Ben’s Research:

·        Madden B, Bowers B. Perspective: Sorted: an experimental interpretive poetry piece on injectable medications care at the end of life. Journal of Research in Nursing. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17449871251357097

·        Bowers B, Pollock K, Etkind S, et al. ‘We’ve Taken on a More Advanced Clinical Role’: A Multimethod Study of Community Nurses’ Extended Roles in Palliative Care. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jan.70019

·        Bowers B, Pollock K, Barclay S. Simultaneously reassuring and unsettling: a longitudinal qualitative study of community anticipatory medication prescribing for older patients. https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/51/12/afac293/6881500

·        Bowers B, Gwyn S, et.al. Learning from end-of-life injectable medication patient safety incidents in the community: a mixed-methods analysis. https://bjgp.org/content/early/2025/09/28/BJGP.2025.0106

Ben is reading:

This Mortal Coil: A history of death by Andrew Doig

Resources:

Bella reads her poem https://youtu.be/fHoAaiPG6C8?si=UYMP-YN_tU_WEHz4

Stephanie Kirkland’s episode https://youtu.be/vnbD0U3Jn5E?si=P1XTtl7lBfqyNe7F

LINK: NIHR funding options https://www.nihr.ac.uk/funding-opportunities

Tea advent calendar’s I tried in Dec:

1)     Tencha Tea Advent Calendar

2)     Alpi Nature Tea Advent Calendar

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 Dr Ben Bowers) and not that of any of their affiliated institutions.

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