How should a first year medical student spend their summer holidays …

Reblogged from Centre for Applied Excellence in Skin and Allergy Research (CAESAR)

SARAH NEWMAN School of Primary Care Research Intern, 2025

… working hard or hardly working? Or maybe a bit of both?

I’m a first-year medical student at Exeter and I’ve just spent four weeks (working hard!) as an NIHR School of Primary Care Research intern at the University of Bristol’s Centre for Academic Primary Care (CAPC).

The School of Primary Care Research carries out internationally recognised primary care research across its nine member universities and every year, they run an internship programme for undergraduate students. Competition for one of the two placements in CAPC was fierce! So I was delighted in June to board the train to Bristol. 

The first day was a whirlwind of meet and greets, the warmth of the CAPC welcome made me feel very comfortable. I was fully integrated into the Centre for Applied Excellence in Skin and Allergy Research (CAESAR) group, which comprises a mixture of doctors, nurses, psychologists and methodologists. 

I mainly worked on a systematic review about real-world use of topical treatments for atopic eczema in children and young people. Our understanding of how creams and ointments for eczema are used in the real-world is limited, so this review is unique in its focus and shines light on whether patients do what doctors and nurses think they should! (And if it matters).  This project certainly had its challenges, as the lack of consistent reporting across papers means that often trying to extract even basic information such as the characteristics of the people who took part e.g. age, was quite difficult. I am proud of my input as it has been rewarded with a co-authorship on the resulting academic paper. 

To give me exposure to a range of primary care research, I also got involved in smaller ways in other projects. For example, in ELYFANT (Early Food Allergen Introduction) I helped analyse free text responses from parents of 15 to 17 month-old children about whether they had introduced food allergens into their child’s diet. The results from ELYFANT will determine levels of awareness of and adherence to early allergen introduction advice. I learnt how research can build on, and be supported by, existing external schemes – this study is being done in collaboration with the Department of Health and Social Care. 

I also joined meetings about the centre’s James Lind Alliance research priority partnership for children with food allergies. Rather than researchers setting the agenda, this process asks the views of patients, parents, and healthcare professionals on what future research in food allergy should prioritise. An important part of this study is recruiting target populations, and I learnt a lot about the strengths and challenges of research that is reliant on public engagement. 

My previous degrees in biochemistry and medical mycology taught me why research is vital in shaping patient outcomes and experiences. However, much of this research was in a lab, with no exposure to what happens in the ‘real world’. I struggled with this lack of translation into clinical care and is one of the reasons why I turned to medicine. Despite my background as a graduate medical student, having completed a previous research degree, this was still a big step outside my comfort zone. But the induction dispelled any doubts I had, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Bristol! 

Through this internship, I have seen the “other side” and witnessed the multidisciplinary teamwork and collaborative values that CAESAR upholds, in generating patient-led research within primary care. I am grateful to them for giving me this opportunity and inspiring my future medical ambitions.