Barbara

Age at interview: 64

Brief Outline:

Barbara is a research nurse and trial coordinator, and has been working in research for 18 years. She is planning to retire in a few months and is in the process of preparing to hand over her roles for ongoing studies.

Background:

Barbara is a research nurse and trial coordinator. She is married and has four adult children. Her ethnic background is White American.

More about me...

Barbara is a research nurse and trial coordinator in a university department, and has been working in research for 18 years. Alongside this, and up until last year, she also had a part-time job in a commercially-owned research facility; this provided some financial stability, compared to the fixed-term university contracts, and helped her maintain clinical skills. Before starting in research, Barbara worked for 14 years firstly as a nurse and then, after retraining, as a midwife. Whilst she was working clinically, Barbara was involved in a small study on hepatitis C. She had enjoyed this experience and decided to pursue research as “a way to progress professionally”. In her first post, Barbara worked as a research midwife on a study about pre-eclampsia and hypertension in pregnancy. When that study came to an end, she took a post in research nursing. Since then, Barbara has been involved in a range of studies, mostly around women’s health and genetics, with a focus on oncology. Over time, Barbara has taken on a trial coordination role whereby she liaises with various individuals and services/organisations to set up and run studies. When there are inefficient procedures or difficulties in a study, Barbara has found it helpful speaking with colleagues around the country to identify possible solutions. 

Before she started in her first research post, Barbara spoke to a colleague who was already working in the area. This was helpful but it was still a “learning curve” and she had no experience of research regulation. However, strong supervision and a research training course helped. The move into research meant other adjustments for Barbara too. She found the pace of work different, especially when she first started and before the workload picked up; whereas before she had been in a very active role, she found she had to learn to manage her time differently in research. Barbara faced some negative attitudes from clinical colleagues when she first started in post, who believed researchers treated patients as “guinea pigs” for their own interests, but she feels that people now are more accepting of the value of research. 

Barbara feels her nursing and midwifery backgrounds have been beneficial in a research environment. She identifies with having a tolerant, compassionate and understanding attitude towards patients, and feels strongly about putting them at the forefront of her work. However, she also found that research changes this relationship in some ways: “finding that balance, recognising that you have to give up a bit of the […] patient side of things”. Barbara was involved in setting up a clinic for women at risk of cancer when a study highlighted the need for this to be available: “that's been a way of satisfying my patient/nurse interaction aspect which is oftentimes something missing from other research roles”. 

Barbara’s research delivery roles have involved recruiting participants on wards and through consultants. Before taking consent, Barbara ensures that participants understand what the research involves and that they may receive limited direct benefit from taking part. One challenge Barbara faces in her role is explaining concepts such as ‘randomisation’ to potential participants. She has sought advice from different consultants on how to do this, and emphasises the importance of presenting studies in a way that is unbiased and accurate. Difficulties can arise when working with participants who are non-native speakers and Barbara has sometimes used a language interpretation service to manage this. Barbara is also involved in collecting the data for studies – from conducting questionnaires to taking blood samples and swabs. She has not been involved in data analysis or dissemination and doesn’t anticipate this being something she does in the future: “it's come too late in my career to take that on now”.

Barbara is planning to retire in a few months. In preparation and for a more gradual adjustment, she finished her part-time job in the commercial research facility last year. In her ongoing post, she is in the process of “trying to bring everything up into nice, neat bundles” for those taking over her research nurse and trial coordination roles. Reflecting back on her experiences, Barbara is glad she opted for “a research way of moving up in my career, rather than a management one” as she thinks this allowed her to work more clearly towards the aim of “empowering people” at the core of nursing and midwifery. She encourages nurses and midwives who enjoys “the intellectual side of things” to pursue a research path. To those new in the role, she emphasises that it is important to “ask questions” and “hold up your hand” if something is unclear.

Barbara was in a combined research nurse and study co-ordinator post. She gained insights from each role which held relevance to the other.

I think it made me quite sympathetic to what was going on in other places. So because in most cases. So, because in most cases I would be working with the local research nurses to set up the project, although we all had to go through our R&D units and various other, you know, sort of official sort of, you know, routes to follow. But yeah, and I could talk to them. That was another experience as well, recognising, I'm very fortunate the actual, the physical site where I work, I can walk to any of the clinics that I go to you know, I can catch up with the consultants that I need to. And in many places, that's just not the option that they have. And, and that's been interesting to sort of experience that through other people and then try and figure out there have been a few sites who've had tremendous problems with their data collection and follow through. Great frustration. And I know I'm quite sympathetic to them.

When Barbara took a post as a research midwife, the length of contract was a worry. However, moving away from shifts gave her more family time. She also took on a part-time commercial research job to boost her income.

And that initially that was a three year contract. So that felt like reasonable security. I think my children were maybe getting a little bit older. My husband had quite a good job at the moment. His, his work history has been on again off again and a bit erratic, a little bit research based himself. So it, it was quite a big deal for me to upset the apple cart and have somebody not on an absolutely steady income. But I felt it was worth it. And worth it for the lifestyle change and worth, worth it for the degree of self, of control that I was actually getting over my job.
 
No, well, I didn't have shift work any more. That was the first one. Because they're a lot of rewards to do with a, a nursing career and looking after people but the giving up of a lot of free time, weekend time, evening time, family time, you know, I wasn't there a lot for my own kids. And as a midwife, it was kind of interesting to me that we were all about helping women adjust to focusing their being [laughs] their lives and everything they did on this new member of their family and in order to do that, I had to just kind of ignore my own, at home. And sometimes that balance seemed a bit unfair and, yeah, not right.
 
So partly, it was largely that because I did actually take a financial hit by going to a, you know, a full time contract but without the out of hours. I, what I ended up doing is picking up a little bit of part time work.

Barbara was due to retire shortly. She pursued a research career as she felt it offered valuable opportunities to “empower” and support patients, whereas managerial career pathways would likely have more constraints.

In talking about why I choose to do chose say, a research way of moving up in my career, rather than a management one is, something that has always been so absolutely important to me in, in nursing midwifery, whatever is actually, empowering people, you know, yes, we can go in and we can be benevolent providers of care and supervision and, and, and take quite a parental role. But that's, you know, that's very old fashioned and that just isn't that way anymore. And you, you need to and it was particularly acute in midwifery. You need to empower people, women particularly, families, young couples, whoever they are and say to them, you're going to be good at what you want to do here. And, you know, you can do this. And it's just, and, and even that's what research is all about too. Yeah, so. And get you to do that in research and you don't maybe get to do that so much if you're going to worry about management and budgets and things like that.

For Barbara, being a research nurse is about helping to improve the situation for patients. She emphasised that carrying out research activities “accurately” was vital.

I mean I have enjoyed it thoroughly and I would encourage anyone who likes the intellectual side of things. And I, and I don't mean that those who don't do it aren't intellectual. That, that's, it's not an either/or situation. But it's a different kind of challenge. It's a different way of looking at the big picture. Sometimes you look at the big picture bit as a manager, you know, how we're gonna run our service and, and provide for our community. And, sometimes, you look at it from the research side of things and say, ''How can we make our service better? How can we make it better? What we're able to offer to patients.'' And I would say, try it, explore it. Go to it with an open mind. Find nice people to work with. And in, and then it and it matters hugely that you do it right and you do it accurately. And then you understand why those things matter. Sometimes they don't matter in life. But in research it really does. And, and not just because you like to be dogmatic. But because you, you can't, you can't say to somebody, “This can save your life”, unless you've proven that it can absolutely by doing it beforehand. You wouldn't, you wouldn't dare make that promise to anyone. So you, you know, you've gotta do it right.