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Embedding post-doctoral clinical academic careers in practice: The St Bartholomew's Hospital model
Julie Sanders1,2, James Malcolmson1,2, Samantha Philpott Jones1
1St Bartholomew's Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust, London, UK.
Aims And Objectives:
In order to retain and develop pre-doctoral and doctoral staff, we sought to establish and implement a model for supporting postdoctoral clinical academic careers at our hospital.
Background:
Doctorally-prepared nurses can raise clinical practice standards, but there is a deficit of career opportunities and post-doctoral positions. This will inevitably impact delivering the evidence for improving patient outcomes and service delivery. It is therefore imperative that post-doctoral nursing and allied professional post-doctoral clinical academic career opportunities are developed and embedded in practice.
Design:
We describe the development and implementation of a model to provide and embed post-doctoral clinical academic roles at our hospital.
Methods:
A multidisciplinary group devised the model which was approved by the Hospital Executive Board.
Results:
The model includes having a bespoke plan for each individual, planning the post-doctoral role at time of PhD planning, providing 1 day a week protected research time for a minimum of 12 months after PhD completion, having an appropriate honorary academic contract at a partner University, and providing integrated clinical and academic supervision throughout. Other key components include senior clinical and Executive Board support and an existing vibrant research culture at our organisation.
Conclusions:
The St Bartholomew's Hospital model, focusing on individualised posts integrating clinical and academic roles to address service needs, offers a novel approach to supporting post-doctoral clinical academic careers in a clinical setting.
Relevance To Clinical Practice:
Since doctorally-prepared nurses can raise clinical practice standards we developed a sustainable infrastructure to increase our postdoctoral nursing and allied professional workforce. This model could provide a framework for other hospitals to embed postdoctoral clinical academic careers in practice.