Profile

This is Peanut

I live on the coast in Whitley Bay, which is a town just outside Newcastle. I live with my husband James and my two kids, Ava who is 9 and Clara who is 4. We have a slightly crazy wire haired sausage dog who doesn’t like other dogs but loves humans and sausages (which we’ve always thought was odd as she’s a sausage dog!). I love the coast and walk along it everyday, even in the rain, we have a kayak and I’m attempting to use it in the sea, which I’m ok with so long as there are no waves!
I love movies, especially zombie and apocalypse movies, and have my own zombie apocalypse plan ready in case I need it! My husband and I are always on the look out for the perfect burger so we are always checking out new burger places and I love to bake! To make up for that I am a big fan of Les Mills Body combat.

I’ve always been fascinated with why we act in certain ways. My younger sister was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 2 and I was always interested in how this made her feel, not just the diabetes symptoms, but how it sometimes made her feel sad or why she would eat food she shouldn’t even though she knew it would make her feel ill later. She also used to talk to me about how she felt some of the doctors at her clinic appointments just didn’t seem to listen to her. So I look at these areas, although my focus isn’t on Diabetes now it is on Cancer.

I think of myself as a health psychology researcher and I mainly do something called qualitative research which basically means I talk to people, well I try and do less talking and more listening. One of the projects I am working on is finding out what it is like getting diagnosed with a cancer in the head and neck area. I would normally go to peoples houses, or meet them in coffee shops or at the university (now most of my interviews are done on the phone or on a video call – still good but less cake involved!). I would then ask them to tell me about what symptoms they had and who they asked for help and why did they pick that person? Then I would ask who told them they had cancer and what that was like. Did they understand everything they were told and did they get all the help they wanted and needed. I also spoke to the doctors; the GP’s and the cancer surgeons about what it was like doing their job, what was hard about it and how they felt telling patients they had cancer. As people talk I may think of something else I want to know so would ask them to tell me more about something interesting.

I record all the interviews so after the interviews I get someone to type up everything they have said and then I go through it all looking at the way people spoke and seeing if more than one person said something similar. Or looking to see if there is something specific that people found really helpful or really difficult. This part normally involves a lot of highlighters, coloured pens and sticky notes – I love a coloured pen! I then would make groups of all the different comments from the people who were interviewed and see if there were any themes coming out – so one of the themes was Trust – this was because lots of people spoke about how they really trusted the cancer surgeons and the cancer surgeons spoke about how important it was that patients trusted them.

I can then use this information to see where we need to make changes or what would help patients. From this study lots of people spoke about how they didn’t know that some of the problems they were having were serious and that they needed to go to the doctor. So I can now use that to think of a way to let people know that they need to go to the doctor if they have some of these symptoms. People also spoke about how scary they felt dentists were so I am looking at ways we can make going to the dentist seem less scary so people go more often and get help quicker.

For some of my work I work on my own but that is mainly because I am still a student. I also work part time on two other research projects and these are working in a group. I love this part more as its great to be able to get together and talk about what we are doing. We share the tasks out so that one person isn’t doing everything.

Normally at the start of a new project we will do a lot of reading, looking at what other people have said about what we are interested in. We then decide how we are going to do the research. Are we going to talk to people, send out questionnaires, or do both. Sometimes we may just go and sit in a clinic and watch what is happening and make notes. We then have to put all of our plans together and ask a group of people called an Ethics board to look at them. They make sure we aren’t doing any research that might hurt someone or make people very upset. If they say it is all ok then we start work.

In the same way as I mentioned earlier we would do interviews one to one or sometimes in groups then get the interviews typed up and describe the themes in them. The next bit is to let other people know what we have found and we can do this in lots of different ways. We often go to conferences which is an event where lots of people interested in the same topic meet and chat about the research they have done. For this we sometimes design posters, or do talks about what we have done. We also write articles for science journals, sometimes for magazines or newspapers, we may have a podcast, or go to talk to people in different places. I also write a leaflet that I give to everybody who I interviewed which tells them all the things I found in the research.

Normally we don’t get a simple answer or what we find is just another little piece of a puzzle so we then look at what else we need to find out now we know this little bit of information. So we then decide what we would like to do next and start to put a plan together and start looking for someone who will give us some money to do the next bit. I normally ask charities like Cancer Research if they would give us money for our next project. Then it starts all over again….

This is Toronto in Canada where I was really lucky to go for a conference to talk about my research.

This is my office at the university

This is an example of how I might try and make sense of the interviews I do with people

This is one of the lecture rooms I teach in sometimes, my daughter came to help me on this day!

No two days are the same for me, but I do always wake up early as my dog needs a wee!
I normally work in an office at the university, its a shared office with about 15 of us. Some are in a team with me and others are working in different areas.

Turning on my computer is the most important bit and I can see if I am due to interview anyone, if I am I need to make sure my dictaphone (way of recording people) is charged and I have my list of questions ready. I sometimes have meeting to chat about the work I have been doing and I normally have some writing to do. Before COVID I would often be in lots of different places, if I was interviewing I could be driving all over the UK meeting people in their houses or somewhere they would like to meet to chat.

At the moment most of what I do is at a computer, but in normal times I am often on the move. If I was going to a conference then I would need to make sure my poster was printed and my talk was ready and then this might be staying in the UK or flying to another country. This is one of my favourite parts as I get to see a new country and meet up with friends who do the same work I do.

I often have meetings and have to get my work ready for them, telling people what I have done and found out so far. Or we may all chat about something if we aren’t sure what we have found. You are constantly learning something new so there are often training courses to go on, for a new type of research or a new computer program.

I sometimes teach other students, this can de people training to be doctors or dentists or people studying psychology. I might be talking to them about my research or about different ways of doing research. I have also taught people training to be doctors about talking to patients. It sounds easy but there are different ways you can do this to make sure patients understand what is happening to them and that the doctor is listening to their patient too. I love teaching as I get to meet lots of new people.

At the end of the day I logout and head home to see my children and walk Peanut!