Imperial academic appointed to role aimed at getting NHS staff into research
Dr Chioma Izzi-Engbeaya has been appointed Deputy Director of the Clinical Academic Training Office.
Dr Izzi-Engbeaya is a Clinical Academic in the Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction at the university and a Consultant Endocrinologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She will lead on providing more support to NHS staff who want to pursue research projects at Imperial College London.
The Clinical Academic Training Office (CATO) delivers research training and education opportunities for clinical staff as part of the Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC). The AHSC aims to accelerate the translation of scientific breakthroughs into new ways to improve patient care, educate medical students and enhance public health. It is a strategic partnership between Imperial College London, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and The Institute of Cancer Research, London.
Maxine Myers caught up with Dr Izzi-Engbeaya to learn more about her new role and plans.
1. Can you tell me about your immediate priorities?
My immediate priority is to provide more information to staff who are not part of existing training programmes and how they can access them like the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Integrated Training Scheme, which allows medical trainees to undertake academic and clinical training concurrently. Some staff might not be aware of these programmes and how CATO can support them.
I will also be providing more support to doctors who are at the early stages of their careers and want to do PhDs. I will be reviewing application forms for research grants, providing interview practice to secure funding opportunities, one-to-one session support, and running workshops and events.
The aim is to help people develop skills that could improve their chances of successfully undertaking and growing their research careers.
2. Why is it so important for NHS clinicians to undertake research alongside their clinical work?
I think it is important for staff to take advantage of the research opportunities available in the AHSC.
Data shows that patients who are exposed to or take part in research have better clinical outcomes.
For clinicians, if they have research training, even if they don’t pursue a clinical academic career, there are a lot of transferable skills which are beneficial to their clinical practice.
We are meant to provide evidence-based care and as part of research training you learn critical analysis skills which are important when assessing the latest research studies.
Another benefit of doing research is that you spot gaps in care and can design studies which may address unanswered questions. It could lead to the development of new treatments that can be tested in clinical trials or making better use of existing ones.
I think one of the best examples to show why it is important to have clinical academics undertaking research is the COVID-19 pandemic. We had clinical academics, basic scientists and industry working together on developing vaccines, understanding the pathology of the disease to develop treatments and surveillance of the disease to track its spread in populations. It changed the way in which COVID-19 was tackled and Imperial had a leading role in this.
3. What are the challenges to getting more clinicians doing research?
We have a challenge in terms of progression opportunities for clinical academics. It can be difficult to secure senior academic roles and as a result some staff choose not to pursue their research careers further.
There is also a high proportion of senior clinical academics who are eligible for retirement in the next five to 10 years and if we don’t have enough clinical academics to fill these roles, we will have a significant problem which will be detrimental for us all.
We need to support the next generation, and empower and equip them to continue to develop their clinical academic careers.
4. Can you tell me about your own research?
My research looks at how gut and reproductive hormones can be used to treat metabolic diseases such as obesity and infertility.
As part of my PhD at Imperial College London, I undertook some basic science research which looked at how changing the expression of some hormones in the brain that deals with appetite can affect food intake and body weight in a rodent model.
I’ve also conducted translational research into how the reproductive hormone kisspeptin affects insulin secretion – a process in the human body that primarily occurs in response to glucose levels in the blood becoming elevated – in humans.
I’ve been awarded an NIHR Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Award which provides five years of funding for those at post-doctoral level to engage in research activities. It gives me protected time to develop my research.
As part of this, I have put in a further funding application to try and study the effects of weight loss ahead of knee replacement surgery in obese patients. Body Mass Index has been used to restrict access to knee replacement surgery and the evidence as to whether weight loss just before the surgery results in better outcomes is not clear and I’m trying to answer that question.
I am also developing a programme to look at whether reproductive hormones can influence metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease – the term for a range of conditions caused by a build-up of fat in the liver – in menopausal women.
5. How has research impacted your career?
I first noticed how research impacted my clinical practice when I returned to the NHS after doing my PhD. I was more enquiring about why we were managing patients the way we were, and I used research literature more when looking after my own patients for treating rare and common conditions. It improved the quality of care that I gave to my patients by staying up to date with the latest evidence.
I really enjoy research, and I can give more to my clinical practice because of it.
The experience of doing research has been a positive one and I received so much great support from my supervisors, mentors and institutionally from Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
It is one of the reasons why I’ve been able to progress and that motivates me to give back and contribute to the culture of positivity we are trying to promote at Imperial.
6. From an equality, diversity and inclusion perspective how will CATO ensure that opportunities and access are open to all?
Ensuring inclusivity is integral to what we do at CATO.
If people from underrepresented groups need more tailored support than we can see how CATO resources can provide that.
We have support groups at Imperial like women in academic medicine that people can access for advice.
CATO is providing support such as networking opportunities to a wider range of clinical staff such as nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, healthcare scientists, pharmacy staff, psychologists and clinical research practitioners (NMAHPPs) who want to undertake a research career. For a long time, this group of staff have been underrepresented in doing research.
It’s also important that the research itself is inclusive and representative of the patient population. We have close relationships with large funders such as the NIHR, Wellcome Trust and UK Research and Innovation and we know that many of them have requirements for demonstrating inclusivity in research.
At some of our events, seminars and workshops we highlight this, give staff practical advice and signpost them to other groups who can help them ensure the research is truly inclusive.
