Here - Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Here - Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Here - Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
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Editorial<br />
– the outcome of that crucial encounter<br />
may have already been partly <strong>and</strong><br />
significantly determined by what the<br />
patient experienced in the waiting room.<br />
Something the doctor may not just be<br />
unaware of, but may be usually beyond<br />
their control.<br />
Qualitative research has a long <strong>and</strong><br />
respectable history in Anthropology <strong>and</strong><br />
Sociology, though it may be sniffed at by<br />
medical colleagues; it’s just an example<br />
that other methodologies are available<br />
to us as research tools. You don’t need a<br />
high tech brain scanner to accomplish<br />
something meaningful. It should not be<br />
forgotten.<br />
<strong>Here</strong> are some possible research<br />
questions that I would be interested in<br />
assisting any staff member with<br />
conducting some kind of project, or<br />
which I believe others in the <strong>Trust</strong> may<br />
want to pick up.<br />
Why do patients complain <strong>and</strong> what is<br />
their experience of the complaints<br />
process? What leads to higher patient<br />
satisfaction after a complaint? What is<br />
the experience of the staff members<br />
who have been the subject of a<br />
complaint? What is the impact on them<br />
psychologically or in terms of the way<br />
they practice medicine afterwards?<br />
What is found most helpful by GPs in<br />
letters from Secondary Care clinics.<br />
What do they dislike the most in our<br />
letters to them? What impact do our<br />
letters have on care? What about a trial<br />
of different kinds of letters?<br />
When a patient first hears that a GP is<br />
thinking of referring them to a<br />
psychiatric services – what is their initial<br />
reaction? How does the encounter with<br />
services alter that?<br />
When trainees start psychiatry what are<br />
their expectations? How does doing a<br />
psychiatry placement alter this?<br />
Part of the new <strong>Trust</strong> journal could be<br />
devoted to throwing out research ideas<br />
<strong>and</strong> seeing who wants to collaborate<br />
over conducting. Part of the week could<br />
be set aside for doctors in the <strong>Trust</strong> to<br />
meet in order to discuss <strong>and</strong> assist with<br />
research projects.<br />
Remember as well that publishing<br />
doesn’t have to be restricted to<br />
publishing research – letters to journals<br />
can often be surprisingly influential. A<br />
good place to start in your research<br />
career is by submitting some letters. For<br />
that you must be aware of the literature<br />
<strong>and</strong> eventually dialogues <strong>and</strong><br />
collaborations may develop. before you<br />
critique it <strong>and</strong> then eventually dialogues<br />
<strong>and</strong> collaborations often develop out of<br />
such initial correspondence.<br />
Colleagues could get together <strong>and</strong><br />
submit more letters to journals - drawing<br />
attention to the implications of various<br />
research findings on clinical practice<br />
where we work?<br />
These are just questions – I don’t<br />
pretend to have the answers.<br />
But all great research at least starts with<br />
a good question.<br />
This is not as good a paper as I had<br />
hoped. It was done rather quickly <strong>and</strong><br />
under difficult circumstances. But it<br />
might stimulate you to think of doing<br />
research.<br />
Remember, if you predict you’ll do, you<br />
are more likely to do it.<br />
8 <strong>Surrey</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Borders</strong> Online Journal www.sabp.nhs.uk/journal