PhD students
A number of PhD candidates work with the Dr Foster Unit on a variety of projects.
Elaine Burns
I am a PhD student in the Department of Surgery, supervised by Mr Omar Faiz, Dr Paul Aylin and Professor Ara Darzi. I am a surgical trainee undertaking a PhD to improve my research skills and facilitate my career as an academic surgeon. My doctoral research focuses on examining variation in performance and quality in colorectal surgery within the National Health Service from routinely collected datasets. Please contact me (e.burns@imperial.ac.uk) if you would like further information about the research.
Publications
Omar Faiz, Amyn Haji, Elaine Burns, Alex Bottle, Robin Kennedy, Paul Aylin. Hospital stay amongst patients undergoing major elective colorectal surgery: predicting prolonged stay and readmissions in NHS hospitals. Submitted Colorectal Disease.
Omar Faiz, Tim Brown, Alex Bottle, Elaine Burns, Ara Darzi, Paul Aylin. The impact of hospital provider volume on postoperative mortality following major emergency colorectal surgery in English NHS Trusts between 2001 and 2005. Accepted Disease of Colon and Rectum.
Burns EM, Mayer EK, Faiz O. Surgeon volume does not predict outcomes in the setting of technical credentialing: results from a randomized trial of colon cancer. Ann Surg. 2009 May;249(5):866
Burns EM, Faiz O Evolution of the surgeon-volume, patient outcome relationship. Accepted Ann Surg.
Ravi Mamidanna
I am a full-time PhD student at Imperial College being supervised by Mr. Omar Faiz, Prof. George Hanna and Dr. Paul Aylin,.
My research revolves around mortality and morbidity outcomes following gastrointestinal resection surgery. There is a need to develop a composite perioperative morbidity metric that defines and quantifies morbidity and mortality. Such an instrument, when validated, would be of significant practical use for external and internal inter-provider comparison of perioperative outcome.
My project aims to:
Categorize surgical re-interventions and medical morbidity following upper and lower gastrointestinal surgery from historical HES data.
Develop an 'ideal' clinical scoring system (i-POC) that quantifies the success of the perioperative journey following elective gastrointestinal surgery. Qualitative research methods will employ surgical expert opinion to decide upon inclusion, and consequent weighting, of markers of morbidity and mortality.
Develop surrogate scoring systems from administrative hospital data (a-POC) that similarly quantify mortality and morbidity and, as such, reflect the success of the perioperative journey following elective gastrointestinal surgery.
(r.mamidanna@imperial.ac.uk)
Jo Murray
I am a postgraduate doctoral research student based in the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, supervised by Dr Sonia Saxena and Dr Alex Bottle. My main research area of interest is the epidemiology of paediatric infectious diseases. My PhD focuses on the burden of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) among infants in the UK. I will be using Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data to develop a retrospective birth cohort of infants and will explore trends in subsequent RSV-related hospital admissions and mortality among these infants. A key component of this PhD is the development of methodology to link two national datasets of routinely collected patient records. We aim to use personal identifiers to link records from babies admitted to neonatal units in England using the Neonatal Data Analysis Unit (NDAU) database, to HES records of subsequent healthcare utilisation. I will then examine population-based neonatal outcomes beyond discharge from a neonatal unit, adjusting for case-mix factors.
Publications and conference extracts
Murray J, Duffin C, Bottle A, Sharland M, Majeed A and Saxena S. A descriptive study into the epidemiology of respiratory syncytial virus related hospital admissions in England. Poster presented at the Society for Academic Primary Care conference, St Andrews, Scotland, 8th – 10th July 2009. Awarded poster presentation prize.
Murray J, Saxena S, Sharland M, Bottle A and Majeed A (2009) BMJ rapid response letter to Teale et al, BMJ Long term outcomes following admission for RSV bronchiolitis in children.
If you would like further information regarding my PhD project please email me (joanna.murray@imperial.ac.uk).
Will Palmer
The aim of my project, which I started in February 2008, is to evaluate the potential for improving patient safety by providing real-time information to clinicians using existing data sources. Specifically, I plan to use administrative data to report any incidents to specific medical and surgical specialty teams within Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust and to assess the effectiveness of this intervention.
To date, I have reviewed the relevant literature and drawn together a list of existing indicators. Currently, I am developing the algorithms for Stroke-specific indicators.
I study part-time in between writing reports on the NHS for the National Audit Office on topics such as reducing alcohol harm and stroke services.
