Ella

Age at interview: 56

Brief Outline:

Ella has been a research nurse for about 5 years. She has worked on studies about different topics. Her current one is an observational study into probiotic use in care homes.

Background:

Ella is a research nurse. She is married and has an adult child. Her ethnic background is British Black African.

More about me...

Ella has been a research nurse for about 5 years. She originally trained and worked as a nurse in Africa, specialising in midwifery and intensive care nursing. Studying has always been important to Ella, and she says it became a “learned habit” to alternate working for a few years and then undertake a qualification. She moved to the UK to start a Master’s course and, after completing this, worked as a midwife. She undertook another Master’s degree and then worked in health visiting. It was whilst Ella was a health visitor that she saw a leaflet advertising a research job. Ella remembered thinking this was interesting and applied for the role. After several years as a research nurse, Ella went back to health visiting briefly. She returned to research nursing and has since been working on a number of projects. 

Ella is currently working on several studies. The one she is most involved in is looking at the impact of elderly care home residents taking probiotics. Her role includes identifying potential participants for the study, arranging consent (often with the families of the care home residents), and taking various samples at the start and throughout the duration of the study. Ella finds that doing research with elderly participants has some challenges but says that it is also rewarding to work with this group of people. For example, she finds that some of the participants are very lonely and so the research appointments are an opportunity for them to talk and feel listened to. Ella says it is important to have good working relationships with the care home staff as they can help with aspects of the study such as collecting stool samples from study participants with incontinence. In some of the previous research studies, she was involved in vaccinations and taking blood pressure measurements.

Ella enjoys her job and the current project she is working on. However, there have been occasions when the workload has been too high and not enough time has been factored in for her to see all the study participants allocated for that day. She finds the job often involves a lot of travelling, which can be tiring. Ella likes knowing that her work can benefit people in the future, by adding to the knowledge about the best options available in health care. She describes research nurses as “the engines” that drive research data collection, but she doesn’t feel that this contribution is always recognised by others or valued as much as it should be. For example, she finds that the results of studies are often published without listing the research nurses as co-authors or acknowledging all their hard work. She hopes this will change in the future and thinks that there could be more scope for research nurses to be trained in data analysis too.

Ella plans to continue as a research nurse. Initially she was put off by the posts often being short-term but she now feels more comfortable about contract renewals. She encourages other nurses to consider trying research nursing at some point in their careers because it can be very rewarding.

Ella recalled being surprised to learn that nurses could work in research.

When I was trying to do my registration to work here in this country, because if you've got a registration from another country, then you have to kind of change it. So I had to do kind of a placement in a UK hospital for a few months. Those days, it was just a few months. I think I did it for three months. And then they, they had to assess you and see if your work is actually good. So I did that in [City name], and then I-. When I was doing that, there was a lady who said that she's got a job in research. So I was surprised, that nurses can do research. So I was very curious. So, that was at the back of my mind, but I never acted on it. 

Yeah. But I was surprised that a nurse can also do research, because I couldn't see how it would happen. 

Because we were used to bedside nursing, or community nursing, just seeing the patients. So, in my mind, I couldn't see where research would fit in that. But obviously I didn't know much about research.

Ella had a mentor for a couple of months in her first research role, which involved working on paediatric vaccine studies.

Oh, could have been three months, I, maybe- that's when I felt maybe comfortable to do it on my own. Because the first few months- the first month obviously you kind of observe and ask questions, learn by observing.

Then you start now doing it and they observe how you're doing it, they supervise you doing it. Then by third month you feel you're ready. But they used to ask you, "Do you feel comfortable now to go?"

Ella found it rewarding to see the published results of research, but felt that the input of research nurses often went unrecognised.

Oh, it is good [to see the research results]. It is something good to see, especially if something that you-, you are hoping will benefit people. If it works well then that is very good. Yeah. When the studies are published, and it works well, I think that is good. Yeah. And if something didn’t work, at least knowing that you shouldn’t use that pathway, you should use another one, that is still good because it will help people not to make mistakes. And yes. The only downside that I've found as a research nurse is that we do the hard work but when papers are published, your name does not feature anywhere.

So you're just there, feeling 'oh, right, I did put all this input, but not recognised at all'.

A study that Ella worked on required spit samples from participants. This was a challenge with elderly people, and so an amendment to allow saliva swabs was made.

A major problem we've found is that most of them [elderly participants] do not comprehend the concept of spitting. Because we collect saliva, in a little small sample container. If you tell them to spit, they- they will try but actually most of them, their action is drinking. It's not spitting. So, spitting is-. The brain is not working out how to spit. So that is something we've found with the residents. But we had to ask for swabs instead. Because we began with containers then we realised people actually don't know how to spit. The people who can't spit, we'd swab their mouth and get the saliva that way.

Ella found that elderly participants were keen to chat. This wasn’t usually a burden on her time as she could listen whilst carrying out data collection activities.

So, coming to research, when you have the time to communicate with the participant, it's always good. And then you make yourself approachable. And you listen. There are some patients who will come to take part in the study and they are-, they have got emotional burdens they are carrying. And there's some who are lonely. In some studies, you find if you- especially if you have to do studies with the elderly. There's some who are lonely, very lonely. And the time with you is a precious time for them. So they may come with stories and wanting to talk a lot. So you have to be wise how you use the time so that you listen at the same time do your work. Because it's not only that participant, you have got others who are going to come at the allocated time. But when you’ve built a rapport with them, then they know their time is this to that time. It kind of works. I don't know how it works, but it works. You listen to them.

But you're not rude, to tell them, “No, I can't listen to you”, you know, that kind of thing. You listen and you still do your work. Because some of them only need somebody to listen to them.

In her first research nurse post, Ella found contracts were generally renewed and so she wasn’t worried about this in her current job.

No because this happened in [research group/unit]. The contracts used to just be renewed. Unless you say you don't want to continue. Then they would renew without any problem, so I was used to. At first, when I came to the university, it seemed like taking a risk. Because you're told your contract is two years and then you are, 'so, what - after two years, that's the end of me and my work?' [laughs]. But then you realise that they will renew. Unless your work is really bad, then they terminate it. I don't think they would just cut you off like that [laughs].

Mm. So you're not worried about it any more?

Yeah, I don't-, I don't get anxious about it.