Papers published on the education and training of Clinical Scientists

Colleagues from our Assessment and Research Evaluation team have collaborated with researchers from the Birmingham Medical School (University of Birmingham) to look into the education and training of Clinical Scientists and looking at an enhanced model for leadership development, as well as understanding the influences on healthcare professionals’ career choices.

While the importance of shared or distributed leadership in healthcare is recognised, trainees, early career professionals and others for whom the exercise of leadership is a recent development, report being underprepared for leadership roles. Click this link to read the full article. Retention of health professionals is a high priority worldwide in order to maintain expertise and meet the needs of national populations. Click this link to read the full article.

Two papers have recently been published which highlight the issues raised.

The first paper, reported in BMJ Leader, describes an enhanced model for leadership development for trainee and early career clinical scientists that may have wider applicability to other health professions and groups not traditionally associated with clinical leadership.

Buckley S, Smith M, Patel J, Gay S, Davison I. 2021. An enhanced model for leadership development for trainees and early career health professionals: insights from a national survey of UK clinical scientists.

The second paper, reported in BMC Health Services Research, describes the findings of our mixed-methods study, which found that training experiences, personal values, specialty norms and organisational factors all influence UK clinical scientist’s early career choices and progression.

Smith M, Patel J, Gay S, Davison I, Buckley S. 2021. Clinical scientists’ early career choices and progression: an exploratory mixed methods study.