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School representation at this year's SAPC Annual Scientific Meeting in Oxford was impressive. From trainees in the early stages of their PhDs to senior researchers, the programme was littered with members delivering presentations, elevator pitches, chairing sessions and leading mini symposia.

Professors Alastair Hay and Mike Moore
Professors Alastair Hay and Mike Moore

The prestigious Yvonne Carter Award for Outstanding New Researcher was presented to Dr Clare Taylor  by the RCGP's Professor Amanda Howe on the second day of the meeting and the Highly Commended accolade was awarded to Dr Sophie Park. Clare was commended by the RCGP for a body of work that tackles key challenges facing primary care practitioners in the area of cardiovascular disease. Clare presented the results of her study, an analysis of the diagnostic pathway for heart failure in primary care, and acknowledged the School for her Academic Clinical Fellowship (2011-2012) at the University of Birmingham.

Sophie, SPCR researcher and academic clinical lecturer at UCL, was congratulated for her innovative work in developing a distinct body of educational research.

 

Above left: Dr Clare Taylor and Professor Amanda Howe (RCGP). 
Above right: Dr Joanne Reeve, Professor Amanda Howe and Dr Sophie Park.

Congratulations also go to SPCR research fellow Dr Sarah Knowles who won first prize for proposing to crowd-fund health research in the Dangerous Ideas Soapbox Presentation session. Read Sarah's blog Health Research Should Be Crowd-Funded Through Kickstarter.

Professor Carolyn Chew-Graham, SPCR training lead, gave the 2nd Helen Lester Memorial Lecture this year speaking in her area of expertise: the management of patients with depression, multimorbidity and unexplained symptoms.  Professor Nadine Foster presented the second plenary on her School funded SUPPORT Trial.

Professor Paul Little addressed the mini-symposium 'How can research impact be measured?' with experiences of assessing the impact of primary care research, while Professor Tony Avery gave a summary of the three prescribing interventions trialled, and their effectiveness, in the 3E mini-symposium on Thursday. 

Chaired sessions by School members included Tony Avery, Carolyn Chew-Graham, David Fitzmaurice, Alastair Hay, Elaine Hay, Richard Hobbs, Jeremy Horwood, Tony Kendrick, Paul Little, Christian Mallen, Richard McManus, Mike Moore, Sarah Purdy, Chris Salisbury and Mike Thomas, making up almost 50% of chaired sessions.

Studies highlighting the reach and impact of SPCR funded work included those from Helen Atherton, Ruth Baker, Rebecca Barnes, Vladislav Berdunov, Ashley Bryce, Christie Cabral, Sonia Coton, Carol Coupland, Peter Coventry, Sam Creavin, Alastair Hay, Gail Hayward, Jeremy Horwood, Lynn Josephs, Tony Kendrick, Gemma Lassetter, Lily Lai, Brian Nicholson,  David Nunan, Ignacio Ricci-Cabello, Chris Salisbury, David Springate, Rosie Stanford, Sarah Stevens, Clare Taylor. School principal investigator and Patient and Public Involvment lead Clare Jinks has been elected to the SAPC executive committee.

Intellectual stimulation aside, delegates also had ample time to network over coffee in the Mathematical Institute (above), and were entertained by an enterprising 'Sceptics in the pub' session, a lively jazz band and drinks with fossils at the Natural History Museum, dinner in Keble College's magnificent dining hall, and a trip to Oxford University's Botanical gardens.

 

Simon Stevens gave the first plenary session, catching us all whilst fresh and flattering us with talk of the importance of academic primary care. His views on the future for general practice split the audience; alternatives models of practice being deemed essential, but not necessarily popular amongst delegates."


- Dr Helen Atherton, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford

School research fellow and former Yvonne Carter awardee Helen Atherton has written about the conference in her blog: www.nihrspcr.com