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HSRU Summer Student Internships 2023

The Unit's work is characterised by being collaborative and multidisciplinary, and this involves a range of national and international partners. The placements will be up to 8 weeks in duration and up to full-time (35 hours per week). We would prefer the placements to start in June although alternative start dates can be negotiated for the right candidates.

Please specify in your covering letter which internship project(s) you are applying for.

Salary: Paid, up to full-time (35 hours per week, £11.10 per hour)

Criteria: These internships are only open to current University of Aberdeen students. You must be in your second or third year of a four-year degree, or fourth year of a five-year degree. You must be due to graduate in 2024 or 2025.

2023 projects:

1. HSRU PPIE gap analysis

Carry out a gap analysis to advance the HSRU PPIE (Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement) strategy and develop resources for HSRU to support the successful delivery of the strategy.

HSRU wants to grow our PPIE strategy and put it into action, but we need to know where or how to invest our resources to make it happen. We propose to conduct a strategic gap analysis, to help us find the gap between where the unit is now and where we want to be in the future regarding our strategic objectives and the goals of our PPIE, as well as the support available for our staff to deliver it.

Specific criteria: the ideal candidate will have experience or interest in exploring different people’s perspectives and the ability to work/communicate with diverse groups of people. Good writing skills essential.

2. Trial Forge EDI updates

Undertake a review of the Trial Forge website (https://www.trialforge.org/) and update what it offers with regard to equality, diversity and inclusion material for trialists, as well as update the retention section so that it includes evidence from the recent Cochrane review. Produce collated evidence packs for stakeholders.

Specific criteria: Some knowledge on trials and systematic reviews would be helpful. Good writing skills essential. Minimum 4 week full-time internship or equivalent part-time hours.

3. Remote and rural doctors

Help to run focus groups with doctors in training, to compare different styles of job advertisements for remote and rural posts. Analyse results of focus groups to generate recommendations for future recruitment campaigns for posts based in remote and rural communities.

Specific criteria: interest in qualitative research essential

4. Carbon footprint of clinical treatments and its role in patient’s decision making

Calculate the carbon footprint of selected interventions in dentistry, using as case studies two dental trials (iQuaD and INTERVAL); explore the best ways to communicate carbon footprint data to patients in the context of treatment decision making and explore the factors that would influence the impact that carbon footprint information might have in the public’s treatment decision making (e.g. effectiveness of a treatment, how much uncertainty exists between treatment choices).

Specific criteria: the successful candidate must have excellent skills in Microsoft Excel, and must be comfortable speaking to groups of people

5. Designing greener trials: what ‘carbon relevant’ factors influence patients’ decision making?

The carbon relevant influences on patients decision making about trial participant will be informed by the NIHR Carbon Reduction guidelines. The intern will conduct a secondary analysis of existing systematic reviews that have reported the influences on patients decisions about taking part (recruitment) or staying in (retention) a clinical trial to identify the patient reported carbon relevant influences on decision making. The patient-reported carbon relevant influences on trial participation will be shared at a meeting with the HSRU patient and public involvement group to explore what other carbon relevant factors might influence trial participation decisions, and the overall acceptability of trading off different aspects of trial design to improve the environmental sustainability of the trial against patient acceptability.

Specific criteria: the ideal candidate will have experience or knowledge of qualitative research methods and the ability to work/communicate with diverse groups, such as public/patients and support groups

6. Planned mode of birth

To help update the NICE Caesarean Birth guideline on the benefits and risks of planned caesarean birth versus vaginal birth. Work as part of a multidisciplinary team; contribute to data extraction, quality assessment and analysis of studies identified in the recent literature to generate recommendations for clinical practice. Contribute to summarising evidence for relevant stakeholders.

Specific criteria: some knowledge related to clinical trials and the methods for conducting systematic reviews would be helpful. Good writing skills essential

7. Interventions for fibromyalgia

Contribute to an evidence synthesis project, including a network meta-analysis of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions for the management of fibromyalgia-related sleep problems. Conduct further analyses to address the heterogeneity observed between included studies in terms of choice and characteristics of control treatments (some of the control treatments were often inadequate to the intervention being evaluated). Identify studies that use an inadequate control group and update the original network meta-analysis by removing these studies. Contribute to drafting a research paper.

Specific criteria: some knowledge related to clinical trials and the methods for conducting systematic reviews would be helpful. Good writing skills and experience in using Stata are required

8.Compensatory behaviour

Carry out analysis of orlistat and low fat reducing diet trials. Update a rapid background literature search on compensatory behaviour. Help with drafting a research paper, and related outline grant application and an interactive conference workshop.

Specific criteria: must be a medical student with experience and interest in this area of work

Online application forms are available at www.abdn.ac.uk/jobs

The closing date for receipt of applications is 12 May 2023

Please quote reference number HSR070S on all correspondence.