Professor Scott Wilkes
OK, so here goes! A blog is more of a rambling rather than scientific writing or CV writing – apparently. My chance to tell my story and how I’ve arrived at this point on the EMULSION study.
I graduated from Leeds University in 1990, followed by membership of the college (MRCGP) in 1994. As a full time GP Principal, between 1994 and 2003, I enjoyed looking after a personal list of 1,800 patients and delivered a sexual health service including IUCD fitting for a population of 3,400 patients. In this time I introduced child health surveillance clinics into the practice, performed minor surgery and assisted my partners with training sessions for GP registrars. My appetite for practice development led to the personal overseeing and training of our first Nurse Practitioner followed by the introduction of 3rd year undergraduate medical student teaching. A very rewarding part of this time period was being part of a first wave Personal Medical Services practice which led to the contractual development of structured and measurable care for hypertension and diabetes which is now part of the national QoF system we experience today.
My interest in research began during my years as a GP trainee when I carried out a retrospective review of the prevalence and management of infertility in general practice in a Durham training practice. This project was nominated and won the national GP trainee Roche-Syntex award and I was honoured at the RCGP in London. The work was subsequently published in the British Journal of General Practice in 1995 and presented at a primary care conference in Stockholm, Sweden. During my time as a full time GP I published a second paper in 1999 and this consolidated my resolve to pursue a PhD and academic general practice. In 2002 I secured a National Primary Care Researcher Development Award from the National Coordinating Centre for Research Capacity Development, now part of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). This award allowed me to develop my research skills, achieve my PhD in 2008 at Sunderland University.
My PhD entitled ‘Evaluation of open access hysterosalpingography in the initial management of infertility in general practice’ used a multi-method approach to evaluate the introduction of a new open access service. Briefly the research projects included a pilot survey evaluation, focus group study with GPs, cluster randomised controlled trial involving 73 practices and in-depth interview studies with GPs, infertile couples and fertility specialists. This has given me a broad grounding in research methods.
My understanding of the research environment has resulted from my time as a member of Northumberland Local Research Ethics Committee (2006-8) followed by my invitation to become a member of the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit committee (2009-2012). I now chair this committee (2012- ) The committee reviews research projects from primary care, secondary care and academic institutes for scientific merit awarding approximately £1M per annum. In 2009 I was appointed as Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University, and in October 2013 was appointed as Professor of General Practice and Primary Care at the University of Sunderland. This has given me opportunities both in the North East and throughout the UK to lead and collaborate on national projects.
In May 2010 I was invited to become an Associate Editor of the ‘International Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care’ one of the BMJ stable of academic journals. I attend three editorial board meetings annually, regularly review academic papers and contribute the design and content of the journal.
My national expertise and work to date centres around open access investigations in general practice, i.e. service delivery and organisation, with fertility, endocrinology and cancer being the main disease vehicles of this work. I am honoured to have had my work cited by Prof Lord Winston. My awards and grants to date total £7M+ (CI & CoI).
I have delivered invited lectures at BMJ Masterclass workshops in London, Manchester and Birmingham as well as Brighton and MIMS womens health conference (which I also chaired) in Manchester in 2010. In 2008 I was invited to chair part of the National Fertility Day conference hosted by Infertility Network UK.
Perhaps some of my most influential work involving primary care research and research capacity development has come in my work on the NIHR clinical research networks. This work began in 2008 as Clinical Lead for primary care research in Northumberland Tyne and Wear Comprehensive Local Research Network and is now part of the Clinical Research Network: North East and North Cumbria with a team of 22 staff and a budget of circa £1M to deliver NIHR primary care studies in our region. We facilitate study set-up in practices who in turn recruit participants to those studies. We provide infrastructure funding to support and incentivise practices to participate. We now have approximately 30% of practices recruiting patients to NIHR portfolio studies.
I recent years, I have contributed to the concept, design, delivery and writing of significant research grants (SHINE, SORTED, RATULS, i4i PAD). These projects will likely have a significant impact on policy and NICE guidance in the next 5 years. I am also leading an exciting project examining the clinical and genetic determinants of thyroid control in general practice.
I enjoy working with post-graduate GPs and Pharmacists at the University of Sunderland (UoS) and am currently supervising five such Masters in addition to two PhD students. It is an exciting time at the UoS with a significant focus in recent years on developing clinical academic pharmacy and the EMULSION project is one example of the recent success.
How can I summarise? Currently I am a part-time GP Principal, Clinical Research Network lead, non-Exec Director of the local AHSN, chair of the NIHR RfPB committee and work on my own portfolio of research as well as in collaboration with other clinical academics around the UK. I have a balanced and very rewarding portfolio career with 2 days each week in general practice seeing my patients as a GP Principal, and 3 days as an academic GP. Oh, and my passion is golf with a handicap of 5.
