QMUL

The internship will form part of the PERSPECTIVES research project which is funded by Cancer Research UK and co-led by Professor Jo Waller and Dr Laura Marlow at Queen Mary University of London. The aim of the first PERSPECTIVES study is to understand public perspectives of prostate cancer testing and generate evidence to support policy. The intern will support the study by becoming familiar with the context of prostate cancer testing and gathering relevant literature and media coverage to facilitate the research team’s understanding of the public perspective. The internship will be an opportunity to learn about how a research project is run including study design, data collection and analysis, day to day project management, teamworking and communication with stakeholders (e.g. the policy team at Cancer Research UK, public and patient representatives, academic colleagues).

The internship would be suitable for any student with an interest in social sciences, public health, health inequalities, cancer screening and/or early diagnosis. No previous experience is required although the role would suit someone who is interested in learning more about research. The student will be supervised and fully supported by a Postdoctoral Research Associate who works full time on the project, with additional input from the wider research team. The supervisor will discuss the student’s research and career interests and facilitate conversations with other colleagues in the department. They will also invite the student to attend and observe relevant project and centre meetings and seminars to give them exposure to working in an academic environment.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly advancing and leading to promising healthcare innovation, and the NHS 10-Year Plan commits to building “the most artificial-intelligence-enabled. AI-enabled ambient scribes based on large language models are increasingly being introduced into General Practice. These technologies record and transcribe clinician-patient conversations and produce editable structured entries for electronic patient records, including histories, examination findings, plans, and codes. With GPs spending substantial time on administrative and computer focused tasks, these tools are promoted as a way to reduce documentation workload and allow greater attention to patients. However, whilst the use of AI in GPs is known about, the opinions of clinicians and patients on the use of these tools are not well-understood.   

The intern will join a project aimed at understanding attitudes towards AI-scribes in UK General Practice. The successful intern will help gather online forum data and analyse posts using qualitative research methods. Online forums hold a wealth of potentially useful information on patient and clinician views. There may also be the opportunity to disseminate results (e.g., at a national AI or clinical conference). This is a qualitative study, so knowledge (e.g., from university modules) of and interest in qualitative methods would be beneficial. Examples of previous forum analysis work in healthcare include on IVF (Muir and Hawking 2024) and asthma (De Simoni et al 2016). This project provides a great opportunity to contribute towards the emerging literature on AI-in-healthcare.