Role Models


Professor Christi Deaton

Professor Christi DeatonChristi Deaton began her career in nursing in the US working in a wide variety of clinical areas before concentrating on patients with cardiovascular conditions.  She began to think seriously about research after returning to university for her BS degree and working in a research active university hospital.  After completing her Master’s degree in critical care nursing, she became the clinical nurse specialist/clinical coordinator for the Coronary Care Unit and Telemetry Ward.  She and nursing colleagues conducted a small randomised trial of teaching relaxation techniques to patients prior to coronary angiography, and found that patients who practiced the techniques required less sedation after controlling for body weight than those who did not practice relaxation.  Professor Deaton completed her PhD in 1994 while working clinically, became the outcomes research coordinator for Emory Heart Centre, and later joined the Emory University School of Nursing.  During that time she conducted research with patients with heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and those undergoing coronary intervention and surgery, funded by grants from the American Heart Association, National Institutes of Health and Industry.  Professor Deaton was also a co-investigator in the COURAGE randomised clinical trial in North America 2000 – 2007.

Following her move to Manchester, UK in 2003, Professor Deaton held a joint Chair in Nursing at the University of Manchester and University Hospital of South Manchester (2004 – 2010) followed by Central Manchester University Hospitals Foundation Trust (2010 – 2013).  She took up her current post as the Florence Nightingale Foundation Professor of Clinical Nursing Research at the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Cambridge Institute of Public Health (CIPH) and Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust in November 2013.  She leads the Clinical Nursing Research Group in the CIPH.

Professor Deaton’s research in the UK has largely focused on patients with heart failure and abnormal glucose regulation, physical activity adherence in patients with long term conditions, and improving management of patients with cardiovascular conditions.  She was the lead for heart disease in the Greater Manchester NIHR CLAHRC programme, leading a successful programme to improve evidence-based care for patients with heart failure in primary care (2008 – 2013).   She is a co-investigator on a study on hospital level variation in outcomes for patients with acute coronary syndromes. 

Another part of her role is developing research capacity and capability among nurses, midwives and AHPs at CUHFT, and mentoring the next generation of researchers.  She is working with CUHFT leadership and staff to develop a research strategy as a component of the overall nursing, midwifery and AHP strategy.  Activities to facilitate research among staff have been well supported by the Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT).  As one example, the first 4 BRC/ACT nurse and AHP research fellows have just been announced.

Professor Deaton is a Fellow of the American Heart Association, the European Society of Cardiology and the American Academy of Nursing.  She serves on the review panel for the NIHR Career Development and Senior Research Fellowship Awards, and is active in a number of professional organisations.


Eneida Mioshi – Occupational Therapy

Eneida MioshiEneida Mioshi is a Clinical Research Associate at the Department of Psychiatry in Cambridge. She has recently returned to the University of Cambridge after 6 years in Australia, where she held a significant early career fellowship with the NHMRC and numerous seeding grants.

Dr Mioshi has a background in occupational therapy (BA and MSc), and a PhD in Applied Psychology from Cambridge. Her research focuses on the tripod of cognitive, behavioural symptoms and functional disability in dementias, with a view of developing systematic evidence and assessments for non-pharmacological interventions.

Dr Mioshi’s approach of bridging clinical research into everyday practice has led to 49 scientific peer-reviewed publications, including two recent book chapters. Dr Mioshi has developed an array of collaborative work at an international level, which includes projects in numerous European countries, the USA, Canada, several South American countries, Australia, Japan and India. These have led to a number of research publications and ongoing funding applications.  She has recently become the first awardee of an American Alzheimer Association grant in Cambridge.

Dr Mioshi is very active in the scientific community, being an associate editor for BMC Neurology and board member of Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders, and has been reviewing manuscripts for numerous prestigious journals in dementia, including Brain, Neurology, PLOS One, and International Psychogeriatrics. Her pioneering work in functional disability in young onset dementias has led to the first disease staging tool for frontotemporal dementia, which is now used in over 15 countries and the novel drug trials for frontotemporal dementia patients. Her work on a dementia screening tool (ACE-R) has had over 460 citations to date, and is used in over 70 clinical and research centres worldwide, including most dementia services in the UK.

She is currently setting up a research programme in applied dementia research in Cambridge, where she has been establishing collaborative work with a number of dementia research clinics within the University and CUH (Early Onset Dementia Clinic; Memory Clinic; Motor Disorders Clinic), most notably with Dr James Rowe. She has also established clinical research connections with the dementia services within CPFT (Peterborough, Huntingdon, Ely, Cambridge), where she is co-ordinating and developing the new study on dementia phenotypes and functional disability within the Trust, with the mentorship of Prof John O’Brien.

Dr Mioshi is also establishing work in collaboration with members of CLAHRC EoE and the Institute of Public Health.  She is part of a new movement in developing research capacity in dementia and Allied Health Professionals in Cambridge and region, creating and supporting a number of new opportunities for applied research (including PhD students). As part of this initiative, she has been organising  a Research Network for Occupational Therapists from the region, with quarterly meetings held at the Herchel Smith Building. This research network started with 3 OTs and has now about 15 OTs across all NHS Trusts in the region, and Dr Mioshi is working in creating formal links between the group and other relevant NIHR networks.


Ian Wellwood – Physiotherapy

Ian WellwoodIan Wellwood is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, based in the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Public Health. He is a member of the Clinical Nursing Research Group within the Primary Care Unit and contributes to Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions (NMAHP) research in the Institute and Cambridge University NHS Trust.

Dr Wellwood has a background as a physiotherapist with postgraduate degrees (MPhil and PhD) in Clinical Neurosciences from the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. He has extensive clinical experience working as a physiotherapist in hospital and community settings, specialising in neurological rehabilitation. His research has focused on the management and rehabilitation of stroke and long term conditions and has involved clinical trials of rehabilitation interventions, systematic reviews of literature, contributions to evidence-based national clinical guidelines on stroke in Scotland and Germany and comparative health services research within an international context.

He is particularly interested in evaluating complex interventions such as exercise in rehabilitation, and changing exercise behaviour as part of the long term management and prevention of long term conditions. He lectured in Public Health and Health Services Research at postgraduate level in King’s College London before becoming the group lead in clinical epidemiology and health services research at the Centre for Stroke Research in the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. He has undertaken epidemiological and health service delivery research using quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods, and is interested in the potential of large data sets to address public health questions.

Dr Wellwood has successfully applied for personal grant funding as a research fellow and as part of successful collaborative funding bids to Dunhill Trust, NIHR and the German Federal Government. He fulfils research roles on scientific advisory panels for national charitable organizations in the UK and also acts as an external peer reviewer for a number of journals and funding bodies. He is engaged with colleagues to develop local research capacity and working with research networks in Cambridge and East of England to develop research projects that will complement ongoing translational research collaborations with King’s College London and the Charité Berlin.

 

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